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4 



AFTER ICEBERGS 



WITH A PAINTER: 



SUMMER VOYAGE TO LABRADOR AND AROUND 
NEWFOUNDLAND. 



BY 

REV. LOUIS L. xNOBLE, 

AUTHOR OF TUE "LIFE OF COLE," " P O E M 8 ," ETC. 




;/ 
/ 

NEW YORK : 
D. APPLE TON AND COMPANY, 

44:3 & 445 UTvOADWAY. 

LONDON: 10 LITTLE BRITAIN. 

M.DCCO.LXI. 



/a 









.N74 



\ 

4 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, 
By D. APPLETON & CO., 
In the Clcrfs OflSce of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
V District of New York. 



~> 



E, 33. r> ^ L m: E R, 



THE SCIILPTOPv, 



THIS VOLUME IS EESPECTEULLY 



^Itbkakb. 



/ 



PREFACE 



The title-page alone would serve for a preface 
to the present volume. It is the record of a 
voyage,- during the summer of 1859, in company 
with a distinguished landscape painter, along the 
north-eastern coast of British America, for the pur- 
pose of studying and sketching icebergs. 

It was thought, at first, that the shores in the 
neighborhood of St. Johns, Newfoundland, upon 
which many bergs are often floated in, would afford 
all facihties. It was found, however, upon ex- 
periment, that they did not. Icebergs were too 
few for the requisite variety ; too scattered to be 
reached conveniently; and too distant to be mi- 
nutely examined from land. One needed to be in 
the midst of them, where he could command 



VI PREFACE. 

-s-ieT^'s, near or remote, of all sides of tliem, at all 
horn's of tlie day and evenino:. 

For tliat purpose a small vessel ^vas hired to 
take lis to Labrador. Favoring circumstances di- 
rected us to Battle Harbor, near Cape St. Louis, in 
the waters of which icebergs, and all facilities for 
sketching them, abounded. 

To diversify the journey, we returned through 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, coasting the west of 
Newfoundland, and the shores of Cape Breton, and 
concluding with a ride across the island, and 
through Nova Scotia to the Bay of Fundy. 

If the writer has succeeded in picturing to his 
reader, with some freshness, what he saw and felt, 
then will the purpose of the book, made from notes 
pencilled rapidly, have been accomplished. 

L. L. K 

ITupsojf, N"ew Jekset, 
March, ISOl. 



CO:N'TEIsrTS. 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Cool and Novel, ....... 1 

CnAPTEE IL 
On the Edge of the Gulf-Strcam, ..... 5 

CHAPTEE IIL 
The Painter's Story, ... ... 8 

CnAPTEE IV. 
Ilalifax, . . . . . . , , 15 

CHAPTEE V. 
The Merlin, ........ 19 

CHAPTEE VI. 
Sydney. — Cape Breton. — The Ocean, .... 23 

CHAPTEE VIL 
The first Icebergs, . . - , , .27 

CIIAPTEU VIII, 

Newfoundland. — St. Johns, ...,., 80 



Vm CONTENTS 

CHAPTEK IX. PAGE 

An English Inn. — The Gorernor and Bishop. — Signal Hill, . . S3 

CIIAPTEK X. 
The EiJo to Torbay.— The lost Sailor.— The Newfoundland Dog, . 88 

CHAPTEK XI. 

Torbay. — Flakes and Fish-houses. — The Fishing-barge. — The Chffs. — 
The Retreat to Flat Rock Harbor. — WiUiam Waterman, the fisher- 
man, ........ 41 

CIIAPTEK XII. 

The W*ales.— The Iceberg.— The Return, and the Ride to St. Johns 
• by Starlight, ....... 52 

CHAPTEK XIII. 
St. Mary's Church. — The Ride to Fctty Harbor, . . .60 

CHAPTER XIV. 

■^ Petty Harbor. — The Mountain River. — Cod-liTcr Oil.— The Evening 

Ride back to St. Johns, ..... G5 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Church Ship. — The Hero of Ears. — The Missionary of Labrador, 71 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Sunday Evening at the Bishop's. — The Rev. Mr. "Wood's Talk about 
Icebergs, ....... 74 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Our Ycsscl for Labrador. — Wreck of the Argo. — The Fisherman's 

Funeral, ........ 76 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XVIII. PACE 

Our First Evening at Sea, ...... 80 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Icebergs of the Open Sea. — The Ocean Chase. — The Retreat to Cat 

Harbor, ........ 82 

CIIAPTEPv XX. 

Cat Harbor. — Evening Service in Church. — The Fisherman's Fire. — The 

Return at Midnight, ...... 89 

• CHAPTER XXI. 
After Icebergs again. — Among the Sea-Fowl, . . . .93 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Notre Dame Bay. — Fogo Island and the Three Hundred Isles. — The 
Freedom of the Seas. — The Iceberg of the Sunset, and the Flight 
into Twillingate, . . . . . . 96 

• CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Sunday in TwiUingatc.— The Morning of the Fourth, . . 103 

GilAPTER XXIV. 
The Iceberg of Twillingate, ..... IOC 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The Freedom of the Seas once more. — A Bumper to the Quaen and 
President, ........ 112 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Gull Island.— The Icebergs of Cape St. John, . . . 115 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Splendid Icebergs of Cape St. John, . . . .121 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. page 

The Seal Fields. — Seals and Sealing. — Captain Knight's Shipwreck, 129 

CHAPTEK XXIX. 

Belle Isle and the Coast. — After-dinner Discussion. — First View of 
Labrador. — Icebergs. — The Ocean and the Sunset, . . 135 

CHAPTEE XXX. 

The Midnight Look-out Forward. — A Stormy Night. — The Comedy in 
the Cabin, . . . . . . .143 

CHAPTEK XXXI. 

The Cape and Bay of St. Louis. — The Iceberg. — Cariboo Island. — 

Battle Harbor and Island. — The Anchorage, — The Missionaries, 149 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Battle Island and its Scenery, ...... 155 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
Mosses, Odors, and Flowers. — A Dinner Party, . . . 161 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 
Our Boat for the Icebergs. — After the Alpine Berg. — Study of its 

Western Face, . . . . . . .165 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
The Alpine Berg. — Studies of its Southern Front. — ^Frightful Explosion 
and Fall of Ice. — Studies of the Western Side. — Our Play with the 
Moose Horns. — Splendor of the Berg at Sunset, . . 169 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 
Ramble among the FloM-ers of Battle Island. — A Tisit to the Fisher- 
men. — Walk among the Hills of Cariboo, . . . 1*79 



CONTENTS. XI 



CHAPTEPv XXXVII. 



After the Bay St. Louis Iceberg. — Windsor Castle Iceberg. — Founders 
Suddenly. — A Brilliant Spectacle, . . . . 18i 

CHAPTER XXXVIIL 

Sunday in Labrador. — Evening Walk to the Graveyard. — The Rocky 
Ocean Shore, . . . . . . .188 

CHAPTER XX5IX. 
The Sail to Fox Harbor. — A Day with the Esquimaux, and our Return, 192 

CHAPTER XL. 

A Morning Ramble over Cariboo. — Excursion on the Bay, and the Tea- 
drinking at the Solitary Fisherman's, .... 196 

CHAPTER XLI. 
Painting the Cavern of Great Island, and our Sail Ilomeward in a Gale, 200 

CHAPTER XLII. 

After the Iceberg of Belle Isle. — The Retreat to Cartwright's Tickle. — 
Bridget Kennedy's Cottage, and the Lonely Sti-oU over Cariboo, 204 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

The Iceberg of the Figure-head. — The Glory and the Music of the Sea 

at Evening, ....... 210 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Cape St. Charles.— The Rip Van Winkle Berg.— The Great Castle 
Berg. — Studies of its Different Fronts, .... 214 

CHAPTER XLV. 

The Sail for St. Charles Mountain. — The Salmon Fishers. — The Cavern 
of St. Cliarlos Mountain. — Burton's Cottage. — Magnificent Scene 



XU CONTENTS. 

PA6K 

from St. Charles Mountain. — The Painting of the Eip Van Winkle 
Berg. — The Ico-vasc, and the Return by Moonlight, . . 219 

CHAPTEE XLYI. 

After our Last Iceberg. — The Isles. — ^Twilight Beauties of Icebergs. — 

Midnight IlUiuiination, . . . . . .228 

CUAPTEK XLTII. 

Farewell to Battle Ilarbor.— The Straits of Belle Isle.— Labrador Land- 
scapes. — The Wreck of the Fishermen, . . . 236 

CHAPTEK XLYIII. 
Sketching the Passing Bergs. — The Story of an Iceberg, . . 241 

CIIAFTEK XLIX. 

Drifting in the Straits. — Retreat to Temple Bay. — Picturesque Scenery. 

— ^^'oyager's Saturday Night, ..... 264 

CnAPTET. L. 

Sunday in Temple Bay, — Religious Services. — The Fisherman's Dinner 
and Conversation. — Chateau. — ^The Wreck. — ^^Yinters in Labrador. 
— ^Icebergs in the Winter. — The French Officers' Frohc with an 
Iceberg. — Theory of Icebergs. — Currents of the Strait. — The Red 
Indians.— The Return to the Vessel, . . . .267 

CIIAPTEU LI. 

Evening Walk to Temple Bay Mountain. — ^The Little Iceberg. — 
Troxibles of the Night, and Pleasures of the Morning. — ^Fp the 
Straits. — The Pinnacle of the Last Iceberg. — Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, ....... 274 

CHAPTEE Lll. 
Coast Scenery. — FareweU to Labrador, . . . .2*79 



CONTENTS. xm 

CIIAPTEU LIII. rAOiii 

Western Newfoundland. — Tl>o Bay, the Islands, and the Highlands of 
St. John. — lugornachoix Bay, ..... 284 

CHAPTER LIV. 
Slow Sailing by the Bay of Islands. — The River Ilumber. — ^St. George's 

River, Capo, and Bay. — A Brilliant Sunset, . . . 'iST 

CHAPTER LV. 

Foul Weather.— Capo Anguillc.— The Clearing Off.— The Frolic of the 
Porpoises.- The New Cooks.— The Ship's Cat, . . 2'JO 

CHAPTER LVI. 

St. Paul's Island. — Cape North. — Coast of Cape Breton. — Sydney 
Light and Harbor. — The End of our Voyage to Labrador, and 
around Newfoundland, ...... 2y8 

CHAPTER LVII. 
Farewell to Captain Knight. — On our way across Cape Breton. — A 

Merry Ride, and the Rustic Lover, . . . .301 

CHAPTER LVII I. 
Evening Ride to Mrs. Kelly's Tavern. — The Supper and the Lodging, 806 

CHAPTER LIX. 
Sunday at David Murdoch's. — Scenery of Bras d'Or, . . . 314 

CHAPTER LX. 

Off for the Strait of Canso. — St. Peters, and the Country. — David Mur- 
doch's Horses, and his Driving. — Plaster Cove, . . 318 

CHAPTER LXI. 
Adieu to David and Cape Breton. — The Strait of Canso. — Our Nova 

Scotia Coach. — St. George's Bay. — The Ride into Antigonish, . 322 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CUAPTKE LX1F» ia^^e 

Now Glasgow.— Tho lUdo to Tiuiw— Railway Kulo to llalillvx.— rait- 
ing witli tho raiutor, ..... S2G 

CIIAFTKR LXIIL 
t,\>ach Uido tUnH Halifax to Wimlsor. — ^The IMuw Edwarti's Man, aud 
tho GiMitlomaii tKnu XowfouiHllaiul, .... S:i9 

CWArXKK LXIY. 
Wluilsor. — ^Tho Avon, and tt»o Tide. — Steamer fov St. Johns, Xow 
Knmswick. — MiuoiS l>4\sin. — Coast S<vnery. — ^The Sctnie of Ihan- 
g^'line. — ^I'arsbow. — The lk\y of Rmdy. — ^Xo>-a Sootia aud Now 
Brunswick Shoivs.— St. Johns. — The Maiito Coast. — Bland of 
Grand Mauan, . . .... s^ 



AFTEll TCKMllfiS WITH A TAINTER. 



OlIAPTEll I. 



COOL AND NOVKL. 



"After iccbcrrija ! " cxclainiH n ])rudcni, but imagi- 
nary person, as I pencil the titlo on the front leaf of my 
note-Look. 

" Why, after deer and trout among the Adirondack 
Mountains with John Chccney, the Leather-stocking of 
those wilds, who kills his niooso and pafither with a 
pistol ; or after salmon on tho Jaques Cartier and 
Saguenay, is thought to ])o qmto enough for your sum- 
mer tourist. 

"After huITalo is almost too nmch for any not at 
home in tho great unlbnced. Undo Sam's continental 
parks, where ho pastures his herds, and wat(>rs Mi(>in iu 



2 COOL AND NOVEL. 

the Platte and Colorado, and walls out the Pacific witli 
the Eocky Mountains. He is rather a fast hunter who 
indulges in the chase in those fair fields. It is no boy's 
play to commit yourself to mule and horse, the yawls of 
the prairie, riding yourself sore and thirsty over the grace- 
fully rolling, never-breaking swells, the green seas spark- 
ling with dewy flowers, but never coming ashore. The 
ocean done up in soHd land is weary voyaging to one 
whose youthful footsteps were over the fields, to the sound 
of sabbath bells. ,; 

" After ostriches, with the ship of the desert, although 
rather a hot chase for John and | Jonathan over broad 
sands, yellow with the sunshine of centuries, and the bird 
speeding on legs swift as the spokes of the rapid wheels, 
is, nevertheless, a pleasure enjoyed now and then. 

" But after icebergs is certainly a cool, if not a 
novel and perilous adventure. A few climb to the ices 
of the Andes ; but after the ices of Greenland, except 
by leave of government or your merchant prince, is 
entirely another thing. 

" You will do well to recollect, that nature works in 
other ways in the high north than in the high Cordilleras 
and Alps, and especially in the latter, where she carefully 
slides her mer-de-glace into the warm valley, and gently 
melts it off, letting it run merrily and freely to the sea, 



/ *^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



2.^ 



PAGE 

No. 1.— VIGNETTE— ICEBERGS AT SUNSET, ... 1 
J, No. 2.— A LARGE ICEBERG IN THE FORENOON LIGHT 

NEAR THE INTEGRITY, Uq 

. No. 3.— AN ARCHED ICEBERG IN THE AFTERNOON LIGHT, 136 

No. 4.— ICE FALLING FROM A LOFTY BERG, . . 1-73 

fj|> No. Ji.— ICEBERG IN THE MORNING MIST— WHALE-BOAT, 214 

No. G.— ICEBERG IN THE STRAIT OF BELLE ISLE, . . 241 



COOL AND NOVEL. 3 

I every crystal fetter broken into silvery foam. But in 

I 

I Greenland she heaves her mile-wide glacier, in all its 

flinty hardness, into the great deep bodily, and sends it, 
both a glory and a terror, to flourish or perish as the cur- 
rents of the solemn main move it to wintry or to sum- 
mer climes. After icebergs ! Weigh well the perils and 
the pleasures of this new summer hunting." 

" We have w^eighed them, I confess, not very care- 
fully ; only ' hefting' them a little, just enough to help 
us to a guess that both are somewhat heavier than the 
ordinary delights and dangers of sporting nearer home. 
But, Prudens, my good friend, consider the ancient saw, 
' Nothing venture nothing have.' Not in the least weary 
of the old, we would yet have something new, altogether 
new. You shall seek the beauties of scales and of 
plumage, and the graces of motion and the wild music 
of voices, among the creatures of the brooks and wood- 
lands. Our game, for once, is the wandering alp of the 
waves ; our wilderness, the ocean ; our steed, the winged 
vessel ; our arms, the pencil and the pen ; our game- 
bags, the portfolio, painting-box, and note-book, all harm- 
le^ instraments, you perceive, with mild report. It is 
seldom that they are heard at any distance, although, at 
intervals, the sound has gone out as far as the guns of 
the battle-field. 



4 AFTER ICEBERGS. 

"Should we 'have the sport we anticipate, you m& 
see the rarest specimen of our luck preserved in oil an 
colors, a method peculiar to those few, who intend theii 
articles less for the market than for immortality, as men 
call the dim glimmering of things in the dusky reaches 
of the past. 

^'But you shall hear from us, from time to time, if 
possible, how we speed in our grand hunt, and how the 
pleasures and the risks make the scale of our experience 
vibrate. Within a few minutes, we shall be on our way 
to Boston, darting across grassy New England, regardless 
as the riders of the steeple-chase of cliff and gulf, fence, 
wall and river, with a velocity of wheels that would set 
the coach on fire, did not ingenuity stand over the axles 
putting out the flame with oil. 

" This evening, we meet a choice few in one of those 
bowery spots of Brookline, where intelligence dwells with 
taste and virtue, and talk of our excursion. 

" To-morrow, amid leave-takings, smiles and tears, 
and the waving of handkerchiefs, of which we shall be 
only quiet spectators, with the odor of our first sea-dinner 
seasoning the brief excitement of the scene, and all 
handsomely rounded off with the quick thunder of the 
parting gun, we sail, at noon, in the America." 



CHAPTEE II. 

ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF-STEEAM. 

Friday Morning, June 17, 1859. Here we arc on 
the edge of the Gulf-Stream, loitering in a fog that would 
seem to drape the whole Atlantic in its chilly, dismal 
shroud. We are as impatient as children before the 
drop-curtain of a countiy show, and in momentary ex- 
pectation that this unlucky mist will rise and exhibit 
Halifax, where we leave the steamer, and take a small 
coasting-vessel for Cape Breton and Newfoundland. 

As we anticipated, both of us have been sea-sick con- 
tinually. I had hoped that we should have the pleasure 
of one dinner at least, with that good appetite so com- 
mon upon coming off into the salt air. But before the 
soup was fairly off there came over me the old qualm. 



b ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF-STEEAM. 

the herald of those dreadful impulses that drive the un- 
happy victim either to the side of the vessel, or down into 
its interior, where he lays himself out, pale and trembling, 
on his appointed shelf, and awaits in gloomy silence the 
final issue. It is needless to record, that, with that un- 
lucky attempt to enjoy the luxuries of the tahle, perished, 
not only the power, hut the wish to eat. 

Yesterday, when I came on deck, I found C con- 
versing with Agassiz. Although so familiar with the Al- 
pine glaciers, and all that appertains to them, he had never 
seen an iceberg, and almost envied us the delight and ex- 
citement of hunting them. But not even the presence 
and the fine talk of the great naturalist could lay the 
spirit of sea-sickness. Like a very adder lurking under 
the doorstone of appetite, it refused to hear the voice of 
the charmer. Out it glided, repulsive reptile ! and away 
we stole, creeping down into our state-room, there to bur- 
row in damp sheets, taciturn and melancholy " wretches, 
with thoughts concentred all in self" An occasionel 
remark, either sad or laughable, broke the sameness of 
the literally rolling hours. By what particular process 
of mind, I shall not trouble myself to explain, the Paint- 
er, who occupied the lower berth, all at once gave signs 
that he had come upon the borders of a capital story, and 
with the spirit to carry even a dull listener to the further 



ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF-STREAM. 7 

side of it, and keep him thoroughly amused. It was a 
traveller's tale, a story of his own first ride over the 
mountains of New Granada, accompanied by a friend, on 
his way to the Andes. 



CnAPTER III. 



THE TAINTEK'S STOET. 



Twenty days, and most of tbem days of iutensc heat 
aud sea-sicknesSj "wore spent on a brig from ISTew York to 
the month of the Magxialena, In twonry minutes all that 
tedious voyage was sailed over again, and he was in the 
host humor possible for the next nine days in a steam- 
boat up the river, a mighty stream, whose forests appear 
like hills of verdure ranging along its almost endless 
banlvS. 

After the steamboat, came a tiresome time in a canoe, 
foUowal by a dark and fii-eless night in the great woods, 
where they were stung by the ants, and startled by the 
liooting-s and bowlings, and aU the strangle voices and 
noises of a tropical forest. 

Then the tale kept pace with the mules all day, jogging 



TUE i'AINTElc'ti BTOltY. 9 

on slowly, an all-day story that pictured to the listener's 
mind all the passing scenery and incidents, the people 
and the travellers themselves, even the ears of the self- 
willed, ever-curious mules. Towards sunset, the way- 
farers found themselves journeying along the slope of a 
mountain, willing to turn in for the night at almost any 
dwelling that appeared at the road-side. The guide and 
the baggage were behind, and suggested the propriety of 
an early halt. But each place, to which they looked for- 
ward, seemed sufficiently repulsive, upon coming up, to 
make them venture on to the next. They ventured, with- 
out knowing it, beyond the very last, and got benighted 
where it was difficult enough in the broad day. After a 
weary ride up and up, until it did appear that they would 
never go down again in that direction, they stopped and 
consulted, but finally concluded to continue on, although 
the darkness was almost total, trusting to the mules to 
keep the path. At length it was evident that they were 
at the top of the mountain, and passing over upon its 
opposite side. Very soon, the road, a mere bridle-path, 
became steep and rugged, leading along the edges of pre- 
cipices, and down rocky, zigzag steps, that nothing but 
the bold, sure-footed mule would or could descend. The 
fact was, they were going down a fearfully dangerous 

mountain-road, on one of the darkest nights. And, won- 
1* 



10 THE painter's STOEY. 

derful to tell, they went down safely, coming out of the 
forest into a level vale beset with thickets and vine-cov- 
ered trees, a horrible perplexity, in which they became 
heated, scratched, and vexed beyond all endurance. At 
last, they lost the way and came to a dead halt. Here 

C got off, and leaving the mule with F , plunged 

into the bushes to feel for the path, pausing occasionally 
to shout and to wait for an answer. No path, however, 
could be found. In his discouragement, he climbed a 
tree with the hope of seeing a light. He climbed it to the 
very top, and gazed around in all directions into the wide, 
unbroken night. There was a star or two in the black 
vault, but no gleam of human dwelling to be seen below. 
Extremes do indeed meet, even the dreadful and the 

ridiculous. And so it was with C in the tree-top. 

From almost desperation, he passed into a frolicsome 
mood, and began to talk and shout, at the top of his voice, 
in about the only Spanish he could then speak, that he 
would give cinco pesos, cinco pesos, — five dollars, five dol- 
lars, to any one that would come and help them. From 
five he rose to ten. But being scant of Spanish, he could 
express the ten in no other way than by doubling the 
cinco — cinco cinco pesos, cinco cinco pesos. Fruitless 
effort ! A thousand pounds would have evoked no 
friendly voice from the inhospitable solitude. 



THE painter's STORY. 11 

The airing, though, was refreshing, and he clambered 
down and attempted his way back, shouting as usual, 
but now, to his sm-prise, getting no reply. What could 
it mean ? Where was F ? Had he got tired of wait- 
ing, and gone off .? With redoubled energy C pushed 

on through the interminable brush to see. He was in a 
perfect blaze of heat, and dripping with perspiration. A 
thousand vines tripped him, a thousand branches whipped 
him in the face. When he stopped to listen, his ears 
rung with the beating of his own heart, and he made the 
night ring too with his loud hallooing. But no one an- 
swered, and no mules could be found. Nothing was left 
but to push forward, and he did it, with a still increasing 
energy. Instantly, with a crack and crash he pitched 
headlong down quite a high bank into a broad brook. 
For a moment he was frightened, but finding himself 
sound, and safely seated on the soft bottom of the brook, 
he concluded to enjoy himself, moving up and down, 
with the warm water nearly to his neck, till he had 
enough of it ; when he got up, and felt his way to the op- 
posite bank, which, unfortunately for him, was some 
seven or eight feet of steep, wet clay. Again and again 
did he crawl nearly to the top, and slip back into the 
water — a treadmill operation that was no joke. A suc- 
cessful attempt at scaling this muddy barrier was made, 



12 THE painter's STORY, 

at length, through the kindly intervention of some 
vines. 

But how was all that ? Where was he ? He never 
crossed a stream in going to the tree. He must "be lost. 
He must have become turned at the tree, and gone in a 
wrong direction. And yet he could not relinquish the 
notion that all was right. He decided to continue for- 
ward, pausing more frequently to halloo. To his exceed- 
ing joy, lie presently heard a faint, and no very distant re- 
ply. He quickly heard it again — close at hand — " C , 

come here ! — come here ! " He hastened forward, F 



was sitting on the mule. He said, in a low tone of voice, 
" Come here, and help me off. I am very sick." He 

was alarmingly sick. C helped liim down, arid laid 

him on the ground. The only thing to be done was to 
make a rough bed of the saddles and blankets, secure the 
mules, and wait for daylight. While engaged in this, 
one of the mules suddenly broke away, and with a perilous 

flourish of heels about C 's head, dashed off through 

the thickets, and was seen no more. To crown their 
troubles, a ferocious kind of ant attacked them at all 
points, and kept up their assault during the remainder 
of the miserable nighit. They bad made their bed upon 
a large ant-hill. In the morning, there they were, they 
knew not where, with but one mule, trappings for two, 



THE painter's STORY. 13 

and F too indisposed to proceed. C mounted the 

mule and set off for relief. A short ride brought him out 
upon the path, which soon led down to the border of a wide 
marsh. The crossing of the marsh was terrible. The poor 
animal sank into the mire to the girth, reared, plunged and 
rolled, plastering himself and rider all over and over again 
with the foulest mud. When they reached the solid ground, 
and trotted along towards some natives coming abroad to 
their labor, the appearance of our traveller, in quest of 
the sublime .and beautiful, was certainly not imposing. 
He told his story to the staring Indians in the best way 
his ingenuity could invent, none of which they could be 
made to comprehend. He inquired the way to the 
town, the very name of which they seemed never to have 
heard. He asked the distance to any place, — the near- 
est, — no matter what. It was just as far as he was 
pleased to make it. 

" Was it two leagues 7 " 

^^Si, Seilor." 

" Was it five leagues ? " 

" Si, Sefior." 

"Was it eight, nine, ten leagues ? " 

" Si, Senor." 

" For how much money would they guide him to the 
town ? " 



14 THE PAINTEE'S STORY. 

Ah ! that was a diflferent thing ; they had more intel- 
ligence on that subject. They would guide him for a 
great deal. In fact, they would do it for about ten times 
its value. He spurred his muddy mule, galloped out of 
sight and hearing, more amused than vexed, and went 
ahead at a venture. The venture was lucky. In the 
course of the morning he made his entrance into the 
city, succeeded in finding out the residence of the person 
to whom he had letters of introduction, presented himself 
to the gentleman of the house, an American, and had 
both a welcome and a breakfast. Before the day was 

past, F and himself were comfortably settled, and, 

with their kind host, were making merry over their first 
ride on the mountains of South America, I am sure I 
was made merry at the quiet recital. Lying as I was in 
my berth, rolled in cloak and blanket, and looking neither 
at the face nor motions of the speaker, but only at the 
blank beams and boards close above, I laughed till the 
tears ran copiously, and I forgot that I was miserable 
and sea-sick. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HALIFAX. 



We have now been lying for hours off Halifax. The 
fog appears to be in a profound slumber. Whistle, bell 
and big guns have no power to wake it up. The waves 
themselves have gone to sleep under the fleecy covering. 
Old Ocean lazily breathes and dreams. The top-mast, 
lofty and shm, marks and flourishes on the misty sky, as 
an idler marks the sand with his cane. Pricked on by 
our imjDatience, back and forth we step the deck, about as 
purposeless as leopards step their cage. They are letting 
off the steam. It is flowing up from the gpQat fountains, 
a deep and solemn voice, a grand ventriloquism, that 
mufiles in its breadth and fulness all the smaller sounds, 
as the mighty roar dampens the noisy dashings of the 
cataract. What a sublime translation of human skill 
and genius is an engine, this stupendous creature of 



16 HALIFAX. 

iron ! How splendid are its polislied limbs ! What 
power in all tliose easy motions ! What execution in 
those still and oily manoeuvres ! 

Among the ladies there is one of more than ordinary 
beauty. Luxuriant, dark hair, a fair complexion with 
the bloom of health, a head and neck that would attract 
a sculptor, and surpassingly fine, black eyes. There is a 
power in beauty. Why has not God given it to us all .? 
You shall answer me that in heaven. There is indeed a 
power in beauty. It goes forth from this young woman 
on all sides, like rays from some central light. I have 
called her a New England girl, but she turns out to be 
Welsh. 

How like magic is the work of this fog ! Instantly 
almost it is pulled apart like a fleece of wool, and lo ! 
the heavens, the ocean, and the rugged shores. A pilot 
comes aboard from a fishing-boat, looking as rough and 
craggy as if he had been, toad-like, blasted out of the 
rocks of his flinty country, so brown and warty is his 
skin, so shaggy are his beard and hair, so sail-like and 
tarry is his raiment. The ancient mariner for all the 
world ! His skinny hand touches no common mortal. 
His glittering eye looks right on, as he moves with silent 
importance to the place where shine the gilded buttons 
of the caj)tain. 



HALIFAX. 17 

This is a wild northern scene. Hills, bony with rock 
and bristling with pointed firs, slope down to the sea. 
But yet how beautiful is any land looking off upon the 
barren deeps of ocean. Distant is the city on a hill-side, 
glittering at a thousand points, whUe on either hand, as 
we move in at the entrance of the harbor, are the pleas- 
ant woods and the white dwellings, country steeples and 
cultivated grounds. As the comfortless mist rolls away, 
and the golden light follows after, warming the wet and 
chilly landscape, I feel that there are bliss and beauty 
in Nova Scotia. • 

Grandly as we parade ourselves, in the presence of 
the country and the town, I prefer the more modest, 
back-street entrance of the railroad. The fact is, I am 
afraid of your great steamer on the main, and for the 
reason given by a friend of mine : if you have a smash- 
up on the land, why, there you are ; if, on the sea, where 
are you ? 

I have been talking with the fair lady of Wales. She 
was all spirit. " There was much," she said, " that was 
fine, in America ; but Wales was most beautiful of all. 
Had I ever been in Wales ? " One could well have felt 
sorry he was not then on his way to Wales. We parted 
where we met, probably to meet no more, and I went for- 
ward to gaze upon the crowded wharf, which we were 



18 HALIFAX. 

then approaclung. A few hasty adieus to some newly- 
formed acquaintances, and we passed ashore to seek the 
steamer for Cape Breton. It was waiting for us just he- 
hind the storehouse where we landed, and soon followed 
the America with a speed not exactly in proportion to 
the noise and effort. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE MEKLIN. 



Be it known that the Merlin, the name in which our 
vessel delights, is a small propeller, with a screw wheel, 
and a crazy mess of machinery in the middle, which go 
far towards making one deaf and dumb by day, but very 
wakeful and talkative by night ; so thoroughly are the 
rumbling, thumping and clanking disseminated through 
all those parts appointed for the passengers. The Merlin 
has not only her peculiar noises, but her own peculiar 
ways and motions ; motions half wallowing and half pro- 
gressive ; a compound motion very difficult to describe, 
at the time, mainly on account of a disagreeable con- 
fusion in the brain and stomach. 

The arrangements in the Merlin for going to repose 
are better than those for quitting it. No chestnut lies 



20 THE MEELIN. 

more snugly in the burr tlian your passenger in his berth. 
If he happen to be short and slender, it is sure to fit him 
all the better. But when he gets out of it, he is pushed 
forward into company immediately, and washes in the 
one bowl, and looks at the one glass. On board the Mer- 
lin, one feels disposed to give the harshest words of his 
vocabulary a freq[uent airing. He sees how it is, and he 
says to himself : I have the secret of this Merlin ; she is 
intended to put a stop to travel ; to hinder people from 
leaving Halifax for Sydney and St. Johns. Wait you 
eight and forty hours after this ungenerous soliloquy, and 
speak out then. What do you say ? The Merlin is the 
thing ! 

Away in this dusky corner of the world Peril spins her 
web. High and wide and deep she stretches her subtle 
lines : cliffs, reefs and banks, ice, currents, mists and 
winds. But the Merlin is no moth, no feeble insect to get 
entangled in this terrible snare. Dark-winged dragon- 
fly of the sea, she cuts right through them all. Tour 
grand ocean steamer, with commander of repute, plays 
the tragic actress quite too frequently in the presence of 
these dread capes. But the Merlin, with Captain Samp- 
son's tread upon the deck, in the night and in the light, 
with his look ahead and his eye aloft, and his plummet 
in the deep sea, trips along her billowy path as lightly as 



THE MERLIN. 21 

a lady trips among her flowers. A blessing upon Captain 
Sampson who sails the little Merlin from Nova Scotia to 
Newfoundland. He deserves to sail an Adriatic. 

Here we are again in that same bad fog, that smoth- 
ered much of our pleasure, and some of our good luck, in 
the America. It is gloomy midnight, and the sea is up. 
A pale, blue flame crowns the smoke-stack, and sheds a 
dreary light upon the sooty, brown sails. The breeze 
plays its wild music in the tight rigging, while the swells 
beat the bass on the hollow bow. To a landsman, how 
frightfully the Merlin rolls ! But we are dashing along 
through this awful wilderness, right steadily. Every hour 
carries us ten miles nearer port. Ye wandering barks, on 
this dark, uncertain highway, do hear the mournful clang 
of our bell, and turn out in time as the law of nature 
directs ! Ye patient, watchful mariners that keep the 
look-out forward, pierce the black mist with your keen 
sight, and spy the iceberg, that white sepulchre of the 
careless sailor. Just here there is a mountain in the 
deep, and we are crossing its summit, which accounts for 
the sharp, rough sea, the captain tells me. The vessel 
now turns into the wind, the loose sails roar and crack, 
and bound in their strong harness, like frightened horses ; 
loud voices cut through the uproar, rapid footsteps 
thump, and rattling ropes lash the deck. Then there 



22 THE MERLIN. 

is a momentary lull : they Leave the lead. The moun- 
tain top is under us, say, five hundred feet. All is 
right. Captain Sampson puts off into wider waters, and 
I, chilly and damp, creep into my herth, full of hope 
and sleep. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

SYDNEY. — CAPE BKETON.— THE OCEAN. 

Monday, June 19, 1859. We are still rising and 
sinking on the misty ocean, and somewliere on those 
great currents flowing from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

Yesterday, at an early hour, we were entering Sydney 
Harbor, Cape Breton, with a tide from sea, and a flood 
of brightness from the sun. The lively waters, the grassy 
fields dotted with white dwellings, and the dark green 
woodlands were bathed in splendor. A few clouds, that 
might have floated away from the cotton-fields of Ala- 
bama, kept Sunday in the quiet heavens. We went 
ashore with some thought of attending church, but found 
the time would not permit. A short walk to some In- 
dian huts, with the smoke curling up from their peaks 
like the pictures of volcanoes, a cup of tea of our own 
making, some toast and fresh eggs in the village tavern, 



24 SYDNEY. CAPE BRETON. — THE OCEAN. 

with the comfort of sitting to enjoy them at a steady 
table on firm land, gave an agreeable seasoning to the 
hour we hngered in Sydney, and braced us for the long 
stretch across to Newfoundland. 

As you enter Sydney Bay, yon see northward some 
remarkable cliffs, fan-like in shape as they rise from the 
sea. In the clear and brilliant morning air, they had a 
roseate and almost flame-like hue, which made them ap- 
pear very beautiful. I thought of them as some gigantic 
sea-shells placed upon the brim of the blue main. When 
they set in the waves, along in the afternoon, the pic- 
turesque coast of Cape Breton was lost to view, and we 
became, to all appearance, a fixture in the centre of the 
circle made by the sky and the sea. How wearisome it 
grew ! Always moving forward, — yet never getting further 
from the line behind, — never getting nearer to the line be- 
fore, — ever in the centre of the circle. The azure dome was 
over us, its pearl-colored eaves all around us. Oh ! that 
some power would lift its edge, all dripping with the 
brine of centuries, out of the ocean, and let the eye peep 
under ! But all is changeless. We were under the cen- 
tre of the dome, and on the hub of the great wheel, run 
out upon its long spokes as rapidly and persistently as 
we would. Our stiff" ship was dashing, breast-deep, 
through the green and purple banks that old Neptune 



SYDNEY. — CAPE BRETON. THE OCEAN. 25 

heaved up across our path. Bank after bank he rolled 
up before us, and our strong bows burst them all, striking 
foam, snowy foam, out of them by day, and liquid jewelry 
out of them by night. The circle was still around us, the 
tip of the dome above. We were leaving half a world of 
things, and approaching half a world of things, and yet 
we were that same fixture. Our brave motions, after 
all, turned out to be a kind of writhing on a point, 
in the middle of the mighty ring, under the key-stone of 
the marvellous vault. The comfort of the weary time 
was, that we sailed away from the morning, passed under 
the noon, and came up with, and cut through the evening. 
When we caught up with the evening yesterday, and 
saw the sun set fire to, and burn off that everlasting ring, 
we were sitting quietly on deck, touched with the sweet 
solemnities of the hallowed hour. The nii2;ht, with all 
that it would bring us, was coming out of the east, mov- 
ing up its stupendous shadow over the ocean ; the day, 
with all it had been to us, was leaving us, going off into 
the west over the great continent. We were crossing the 
twilight, that narrow, lonesome, neutral ground, where 
gloom and splendor interlock and wrestle. The little 
petrel piped his feeble notes, and flew close up, following 
under the very feathers of the ship, now skimming the 
glassy hollow of the swells, and then tiptoe on the crest. 



26 SYDNEY. GAPE BEETON. THE OCEAN. 

The wind was strengtliening, tuning every cord and 
straining every sail, winnowing tlie fiery cliaffi, and sowing 
the sparkling grain forward on the furrowed waters. 
We had a vessel full of wind ; and so vessel, wind and 
sparks together, went away across the sea as if they were 
seeking some grand rendezvous. Far and wide the 
waves all hastened in the same direction, rolling, leaping, 
crumbling into foam, bristhng the snowy feathers on neck 
and breast as they skipped and flew upon each other in 
their play and passion. And so we all sped forward with 
one will, and with one step, keeping time to the music of 
the mighty band : clouds, winds and billows, seabirds, 
sails and sparkling smoke, and Merlin with her men ; all 
moving forward, as some grand army moves onward to a 
battle-field. When there is really nothing to describe, 
why should not one record the conceits and fancies born 
of an evening at sea ? So I thought, last evening, when 
I was a little sea-sick, and sick of the monotony of the 
scene, and a little home-sick, and felt that this was 
pleasure rather dearly bought. Still if one would see the 
planet upon which he has taken his passage round the 
sun, and through the spaces of the universe, he must be 
brave and patient, hopeful and good-tempered. Be this, 
or turn back, at the first view of salt-water, and go home 
to toil, to contentment and self-possession. 



CHAPTEK VII. 



THE FIKST ICEBEEGS. 



Newfoundland seems to be wreathed with fogs for- 
ever. As a dwelling-place, this world certainly appears 
far from complete, — an argument for a better country. 
But yonder is the blue sky peeping through the mist, an 
intimation of that better country, A solitary bird sits 
upon a stick floating by, looking back curiously as it 
grows less and less. Now it merely dots the gleaming 
•wave, and now it is quite wiped away. Thus float off 
into, the past the winged pleasures of the hour. 

Again we are at blindman's-buff in the fog. The 
whistle and the bell remind us of the perils of this play. 
The gloom of evening deepens, and we go below with the 
hope of rounding Cape Eace, and of wheeling down the 
northern sea direct for port, before daylight. Down the 
northern sea ! — This calling north down instead of iip, 



28 THE FIRST ICEBERGS. 

appeoT,rs to me to be reversing the right order of things. 
It is against the stream, which, inshore, sets from Baffin's 
Bay south ; and, in respect of latitude, it is v-p-liUl : the 
nearer the pole, the higher . the latitude. And besides, 
it is up on the map, and was up all through my boyhood, 
when geography was a favorite study. But as down 
seems to be the direction settled upon in common par- 
lance, doiun it shaU be in all these pages. 

Icebergs ! Icebergs ! — The cry brought us upon deck 
at sunrise. There they were, two of them, a large one 
and a smaller : the latter pitched upon the dark and 
misty desert of the sea like an Arab's tent ; and the 
larger like a domed mosque in marble of a greenish white. 
The vaporous atmosphere veiled its sharp outlines, and 
gave it a softened, dreamy and mysterious character. 
Distant and dim, it was yet very grand and impressive. 
Enthroned on the deep in lonely majesty, the dread of 
mariners, and the wonder of the traveller, it was one of 
those imperial creations of nature that awaken powerful 
emotions, and illumine the imagination. Wonderful 
structure ! Fashioned by those fingers that wrought the 
glittering fabrics of the upper deep, and launched upon 
those adamantine ways into Arctic seas, how beautiful, 
how strong and terrible ! A glacier slipped into the 
ocean, and henceforth a wandering cape, a restless head- 



THE FIRST ICEBEllGS. 29 

land, a revolving island, to compromise the security of the 
world's broad highway. No chart, no sounding, no 
knowledge of latitude avails to fix thy whercahout, thou 
roving Ishmael of the sea. No look-out, and no friendly 
hail or authoritative warning can cope with thy secrecy 
or thy silence. Mist and darkness are thy work-day 
raiment. Though the watchman lay his ear to the water, 
he may not hear thy coming footsteps. 

"We gazed at the great ark of nature's building with 
steady, silent eyes. Motionless and solemn as a tomb, it 
seemed to look back over the waves as we sped forward 
into its grand presence. The captain changed the course 
of the steamer a few points so as to pass it as closely as 

possible. C was quietly making preparation to sketch 

it. The interest was momentarily increasing. We were 
on our way to hunt icebergs, and had unexpectedly come 
up with the game. AVe fancied it was growing colder, 
and felt delighted at the chilly air, as if it had been so. 
mTlch breath fresh from the living ice. To our regret, I 
may say, to our grief, the fog suddenly closed the view. 
No drop-curtain could have shut out the spectacle more 
quickly and more completely. The steamer was at once 
put on her true course, and the icebergs were left to pur- 
sue their solitary way along the misty Atlantic. 



OHArTErv VUl. 

NEWFOU N 1. A N 0. -Sr. ,1 OUN S, 

^YIIEN tlio mist dispersed, the rocky shores of New- 
ibmuUand ayoiv close iipou our left, — lofty clilVs, red siud 
gray, terribly boateu l\v the waves of the broad ocean. 
Wo amused oui-selvos, as we passed abreast tlio bays and 
headlands and rugged islands, with gazing at the Tvild 
scene, and searching oiit the beauty timidly reposing 
among the bleak and desolate. On the whole. Newfound- 
la lul, to the vopiger from tho States, is a lean and bony 
land, ill thin, ragged clothes, with tho smallest amount 
of ornament. Along the sides of tho dull, bixnvn mountains 
there is a suspicion of verdui-o, spotted and striped hero 
and theixj with meagi-o woods of birch and iir. The glory 
of this haixl ivgion is its coast : a wonderful perplexity of 
tionls, kiys and creeks, islands, peninsulas and capes, 
endlessly pictui-csqne, and very often magnificently grand. 
Nothing can well exceal tho headlands and piwipices, 



NEWKOUNJJLAND. — H'V. JOIINH. 31 

# 

honcy-combcd, Hliuttercd, and hollowed out into vant cav- 
orriH, and ^iven up to tlic thundcrH and tlio fury oi' tlio 
docjp-Hca Inllovvfl, liead the Pirate of Bcott again, and 
SuriiLurg Head wii) picture for you numbcrH of heads, of 
which it is not important to mention the name. The 
brookfi that flow from the highlands, and fall over chfi's 
of great elevation into the very surf, and that would be 
counted features of grandeur in some countries, are here 
the merest trifles, a kind of jewelry on the hem of the 
landscape. 

The harbor of St. Johns is certainly one of the most 
remarkable for bold and efiectivc scenery on the Atlantic 
shore. The pictures of it, which of late abound, and arc 
quite truthful as miniature portraits, fail entirely to sug- 
gest the grand expression and strong character of the 
coast. We were moving spiritedly forward over a bright 
and lively sea, watching the stern headlands receding in 
the south, and starting out to view in the north, when we 
passed Cape Spear, a lofty promontory, crowned with a 
light-house and a signal-shaft, upon which was floating the 
meteor-flag of England, and at once found ourselves 
abreast the bay iu front of St. Johns. Not a vestige, 
thougli, of any thing like a city was in sight, except an- 
other flag flitting on a distant pinnacle of rock. Like a 
mighty Coliseunj, llie sea-wall half encircled the deep 



32 NEWFOUNDLAND. ST. JOHNS, 

t 

water of this outer bay, into which the full power of the 
ocean let itself under every wind except the westerly. 
Eight towards the coast where it gathered itself up into 
the greatest massiveness, and tied itself into a very Gor- 
dian knot, we cut across, curious to behold when and 
where the rugged adamant was going to split and let us 
through. At length it opened, and we looked through, 
and presently glided through a kind of mountain-pass, 
with all the lonely grandeur of the Franconia Notch. 
Above us, and close above, the rugged, brown chifs rose 
to a fine height, armed at certain points with cannon, and 
before us, to all appearance, opened out a most beautiful 
mountain lake, Vvith a little city looking down from the 
mountain side, and a swamp of shipping along its shores. 
V7e were in the harbor, and before St. Johns. As we 
bade adieu to the sea, and hailed the land with our 
plucky little gun, the echoes rolled among the hills, and 
rattled along the rocky galleries of the mountains in the 
finest style. We were quite dehghted. So fresh and 
novel was the prospect, so unexpected were the peculiar 
sentiment and character of the scene, one could hardly 
realize that it was old to the experience of tens of thou- 
sands. I could scarcely help feeling, there was stupidity 
somewhere, that more had not been said about what had 
been seen by so many for so long a time. 



CHAPTER IX. 

AN ENGLISH INN.-GOVEENOK AND BISHOP.— SIGNAL HILL. 

Wednesday, June 22, 1859. — We are at Warring- 
ton's, a genuine English inn, witli nice rooms and a liome- 
like quiet, where the finest salmon, with other luxuries, 
can be had at moderate prices. Every thing is English 
but ourselves. I feel that the Yankee in me is about as 
prominent as the bowsprit of the Great Eepublic, the 
queen ship of the metropolis of yankeedom, the renowned 
port from which we sailed, and through the scholarly air 
of which my thoughts wing their flight home. 

Among other qualities foremost at this moment, (and 
for which I discover the Bull family is certainly pre-emi- 
nent,) is appetite, the measure of which, at table, is time, 
not quantity. My chief solicitude at breakfast, dinner, 
tea and supper, is not so much about luliat I am to eat, 

as about liow I shall cat, so as not to distinguish myself. 
2* 



34 AN ENGLISH INN. 

C _, who is looked upon as ouc of tlie immortals, and I, 

in liis Avakc^ perliaps as Ms private chaplain, may be re- 
garded as representative people from the States. We 
would, therefore, avoid signalizing onrsclvcs at the 
trencher. The method adopted on these frequent occa- 
sions, is to be on hand early, to expend small energy in 
useless conversation, and to retire modestly, though late, 
from the entertainment. It is surprising how well we 
acquit ourselves without exciting admiration. I am 
hopeful that the impression in the house is, that we are 
small eaters and talkers, pei-sons sHghtly diffident, who 
eat chiefly in order to live, and prosper on our voyage. 
Under this cover, it is wonderful what an amount of spoil 
we bear away, over which merriment applauds in the 
privacy of our rooms. 

When the gray morning light stole at the same time 
into my chamber and my dreams, it was raining heavily, 
a seasonable hindrance to early excursions, affording 
ample time to arrange those plans which we are now car- 
rying out. In company with Mr. Newman, our consul, 
to whom we are indebted for unremitting attentions and 
hospitalities, we first caUed on the Bishop of Newfound- 
land. 

The visitation of his large diocese, which embraces 
both the island and Labrador, together with the distant 



THE GOVEKNOR AND BISHOP. 35 

isle of Bermuda, has given him a thorough knowledge of 
the shores and ices of these northern seas. An hour's 
conversation, illustrated with maps and drawings, seems 
to have put us in possession of nearly all the facts neces- 
sary in order to a pleasant and successful expedition. At 
the close of our interview, during which the Bishop 
informed us that he was just setting off upon an exten- 
sive coast visitation, he very kindly invited us to join his 
party for the summer, and take our passage in the Hawk, 
his " Church Ship." It was a most tempting offer, and 
would have been accepted with delight had the voyage 
been shorter. There was no certainty of the vessel's re- 
turn before September, a time too long for my purposes. 
To be left in any port, in those out-of-the-way waters, 
with the expectation of a chance return, was not to be 
thought of We declined the generous offer of the 
Bishop, but with real regret. To have made the tour of 
Newfoundland and Labrador, with a Christian gentleman 
and scholar so accomplished, would have been a privilege 
indeed. From the house of the Bishop, a neat residence 
near his cathedral, we climbed the hill upon which stands 
the palace of the Governor, Sir Alexander Bannerman, 
commanding a fine prospect of the town and harbor, the 
ocean and adjacent country. As we passed up the broad 
avenue, shaded by the poplar, birch and fir, instead of 



36 SIGNAL HILL. 

those patricians of tlie wood, tlio maple, oak and elm ; 
the flag, waving in the cool sea-hreezo, and the brown- 
coated soldier, pacing to and fro, reminded one of the 
preseuce of English j)ower. His Excellency, a stately 
and venerable man, to whom we had come pnrposely to 
pay onr respects, received ns in a spacious room with an- 
tique furniture. During the conversation, he expressed 
much pleasure that a painter of distinction had come to 
visit the sceneiy of Newfoundland, and kindly offered such 
assistance as would facilitate sketching in the neighbor- 
hood. A soldier should watch for icebergs, on Signal 
Hill, a lofty peak that overlooks the sea ; a boat should 
be at his command, the moment one was needed. Upon 
leaving, he gave ns for perusal Sir Kichard Bonnycastle's 
Newfoundland. From the western front of the house, we 
overlooked a broad vale, dotted with farmhouses, and, in 
its June dress of grass and dandelions, quite New-Eng- 
land-like. We continued our walk to Quidy Viddy, a 
pretty lake, and returned in time to call upon Mr. Am- 
brose Shea, Speaker of the Assembly, to whom C had 

letters of introduction. 

. After dinner we set off for Signal Hill, the grand 
observatory of the country, both by nature and art. Be- 
fore we were half-way up, we found that June was June, 
even in Newfoundland. But there is something in a 



SIGNAL HILL. 37 

mountain ramble that pays for all warmtli and fatigue. 
Little rills rattled by, paths wound among rocky notches 
and grassy chasms, and led out to dizzy '' over-looks " 
and " short-offs." The town with its thousand sgaokes 
sat in a kind of amphitheatre, and seemed to enjoy the 
spectacle of sails and colors in the harbor. Below us 
were the fishing-flakes, a kind of thousand-legged shelves, 
made of poles, and covered with spruce boughs, for diying 
fish, the local term for cod, and placed like terraces or 
large steps one above another on the rocky slopes. We 
struck into a fine military road, and passed spacious stone 
barracks, soldiers and soldiers' families, goats and little 
gardens. 

From the observatory, situated on the craggy pinna- 
cle, both the rugged interior and the expanse of ocean 
were before us. Far off at sea a cloud of canvas was 
shining in the afternoon sun, a kind of golden white, 
while down the northern coast, distant several miles, was 
an iceberg. It was glittering in the sunshine like a 
mighty crystal. The work and play of to-morrow were 
resolved upon immediately, and wo descended at our 
leisure, plucking the wild flowers among the moss and 
herbage, and gazing quietly at the hues and features of 
the extended prospect. 



CHAPTEK X. 

THE EIDE TO TOEBAT.— TUE LOST SAILOK.-THE NEWFOUND- 
LAND DOG. 

Thuesday, June 23. We were stirring "betimeSj 
making prej)arations for our first venture after an iceberg. 
Unluckily, it was a Komish holiday, and every vehicle in 
town seemed to he busy carrying people about, by the 
time we thought it necessary to engage one for ourselves. 
We succeeded at length in securing a hard-riding wag- 
on, driven by a young Englishman, and were soon on 
our way, trundling along at a good pace over the smooth 
road leading from St. Johns to Torbay, the nearest water 
to our berg, and distant some eight or nine miles. The 
morning was fine, the sunshine cheering, the air cool and 
bracing, and all went promisingly. The adjacent coun- 
try is an elevated kind of barren, clothed with brush- 
wood, spruce and birch, crossed by numerous little trout 
brooks, and spotted with ponds and wet meadows, with 



THE RIDE TO TORBAY. THE LOST SAILOR. 39 

here and there a lonely-looking hut. But there were the 
songs of birds, the tinkling of cow-bells, and the odor of 
evergreens and flowers. A characteristic of the coast is 
its elevation above the country lying behind. Instead of 
descending, the lands rise, as you approach the ocean, 
into craggy domes, walls and towers, breaking off pre- 
cipitously, and affording from the eminences of our road 
prospects of sparkling sea. Our hearts were full of music, 
and our minds and conversation were a kind of reflection of 
the solitary scene. For months, our young man tells us, the 
snow lies so deeply along this fine road as to render it im- 
passable for sleighs, except when sufficiently hard to bear 
a horse. The snow-shoe is then in general use. One 
of the pests of early summer is the black fly, as we have 
already experienced. A few years ago, a sailor ijm away 
from his vessel, at St. Johns, and took to these bushy 
wilds, in which, at length, he got lost, and finally per- 
ished from the bites of this pestilent fly. He was found 
accidentally, and in a state of insensibility, being covered 
with them, and so nearly devoured that he died within a 
few hours after his discovery. 

Speaking of the Newfoundland dog, he told us that 
one of pure, original blood, was scarcely to be found. I 
had supposed, and had good reason for it, from what I had 
read in the papers, about the time of the visit to St. 



40 THE EIDE TO TOEBAY. — THE LOST SAILOR. 

Johns, upon the laying of the Atlantic Cable, that any 
person could for a small sum purchase numbers of the 
finest clogs. I think a certain correspondent of some 
New York daily, told us that several gentlemen supplied 
themselves with these animals upon their departure. If 
such was the case, then they took away with them about 
the last of the real breed, and must have paid for them 
such prices as they would not like to own. Scarcely a 
splendid dog is now to be seen, and five, ten, and even 
twenty pounds sterhng might be refused for him. We 
have not seen the first animal that compares with those 
which trot up and down Broadway nearly every week ; 
and they are not the pure-blooded creature, either, by 
a good deal. It is to be regretted, that dogs of such 
strength,- beauty and sagacity should have been permitted 
to become almost extinct in their native country. 



CHAPTER XI. 

TOEBAY.— FLAKES AND FISH - HOUSES.— THE FISHING BAEGE.— THE 
CLIFFS.— THE EETEEAT TO FLAT EOCK HAEBOE.— WILLIAM WATEE- 
MAN, THE FISHEEMAN. 

ToRBAY, finely described in a recent novel by the Rev. 
E. T. S. Lowell, is an arm of the sea, a sliort, strong arm 
witb a slim hand and finger, reaching into the rocky land, 
and touching the waterfalls and rapids of a pretty brook. 
Here is a little village, with Eomich and Protestant 
steeples, and the dwellings of fishermen, with the uni- 
versal appendages of fishing-houses, boats and flakes. 
One seldom looks upon a hamlet so picturesque and 
wild. The rocks slope steeply down to the wonderfully 
clear water. Thousands of poles support half-acres of the 
spruce-bough shelf, beneath which is a dark, cool region, 
crossed with footpaths, and not unfrequently sprinkled and 
washed by the surf, — a most kindly office on the part of 



42 FLAKES AND FISH-HOUSES. 

the sea, you will allow, when once you have scented the 
fish-offal perpetually dro23ping from the evergreen fish- 
house above. These little buildings on the flakes are 
conspicuous features, and look as fresh and wild as if 
they had just wandered away from the woodlands. 

There they stand, on the edge of the lofty pole-shelf, 
or upon the extreme end of that part of it which runs off 
frequently over the water like a wharf, an assemblage of 
huts and halls, bowers and arbors, a curious huddle made 
of poles and sweet-smelling branches and sheets of birch- 
bark. A kind of evening haunts these rooms of spruce, at 
noonday, while at night a hanging lamp, like those we 
see in old pictures of crypts and dungeons, is to the 
stranger dnly a kind of buoy by which he is to steer his 
way through the darkness. To come off then without 
pitching headlong, and soiling your hands and coat, is the 
merest chance. Strange ! one is continually allured into 
these piscatory bowers whenever he comes near them. 
In spite of the chilly, salt air, and the repulsive smells 
about the tables where they dress the fish, I have a fancy 
for these queer structures. Their front door opens upon 
the sea, and their steps are a mammoth ladder, leading 
down to the swells and the boats. There is a charm also 
about fine fishes, fresh from the net and the hook, — the 
salmon, for example, whose pink and yellow flesh has 



A FISHING BARGE. 43 

given a name to one of the most delicate liues of Art or 
Nature. 

But where was the iceberg ? We were not a little 
disappointed when all Torbay was before us, and nothing 
but dark water to be seen. To our surprise, no one 
had ever seen or heard of it. It must lie off Flat Eock 
Harbor, a little bay below, to the north. We agreed 
with the supposition that the berg must lie below, and 
made speedy preparations to pursue, by securing the only 
boat to be had in the village, — a substantial fishing- 
barge, laden rather heavily in the stern with at least a 
cord of cod-seine, but manned by six stalwart men, a mo- 
tive power, as it turned out, none too large for the occa- 
sion. We embarked at the foot of a fish-house ladder, 
being carefully handed down by the kind-hearted men, 
and took our seats forward on the little bow-deck. All 
ready, they pulled away at their long, ponderous oars, 
with the skill and deliberation of life-long practice, and 
we moved out upon the broad, glassy swells of the bay 
towards the open sea, not indeed with the rapidity of a 
Yankee club-boat, but with a most agreeable steadiness, 
and a speed happily fitted for a review of the shores, 
wliich, under the afternoon sun, were made brilliant with 
lights and shadows. 

We were presently met by a breeze, which increased 



44 THE CLIFFS. 

tlie s^Yoll, anil made it easier to fall in eloise under the 
northern shore, a lino of stupendous precipices, to Avhich 
the oeeaii g'oes deep home. The ride beneath these 
mighty cliffs was by far the iinest boat-ride of my life. 
While they do not cq[ual the rocks of the Saguenay, yet, 
>vilh all tlieir appendages of extent, structure, complex- 
ion and adjacent sea, they ai-e sufficiently lofty to pro- 
duce an almost appalling sense of subliniity. The surges 
lave them at a great height, sliding from angle to angle, 
and fretting into foam as they slip obliquely along the 
foco of the vast Nvalls, They descend as deeply as two 
hundred feet, and rise perpendicularly two, three, and 
four hundred feet from the water. Their stratifications 
are up and do^vn, and of different shades of light and 
dark, a ribbed and striped appearance tliat increases the 
tlio effect of height, and gives variety and spirit to the 
surface. 

At one point, where the rocks advance from the 
main front, and form a kind of headland, the strata, six 
and eight feet thick, assume the form of a pyramid, from 
a broad base of a hundred yards or more running up to 
meet in a point. The heart of this vast cone has partly 
fallen out, and left the resemblance of an enormous tent 
\Yith cavernous recesses and halls, in which tlie shades of 
evening >v ere already lurkini:,-. and the surf was sounding 



THE CLIFFS. 45 

mournfully. Occasionally it was musical, pealing forth 
like the low tones of a great organ with awful solemnity. 
Now and then, the gloomy silence of a minute was 
broken by the crash of a billow far within, when the re- 
verberations were like the slamming of great doors. 

After passing this grand specimen of the architecture 
of the sea, there appeared long roclry reaches, like Egyp- 
tian temples, old dead cliffs of yellowish gray, checked 
off by lines and scams into squares, and having the re- 
semblance, where they have fallen out into the ocean, of 
doors and windows opening in upon the fresher stone. 
Presently we came to a break, where there were grassy 
slopes and crags intermingled, and a flock of goats skip- 
ping about, or ruminating in the warm sunshine. A 
knot of kids — the reckless little creatures ! — were sport- 
ing along the edge of the precipice in a manner almost 
painful to witness. The pleasure of leaping from point 
to point, where a single mis-step would have dropped 
them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in proportion to the 
danger. The sight of some women, who were after the 
goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which oc- 
curred here only a few days before : a lad playing about 
the steep, fell into the sea, and was drowned. 

We were now close upon the point just behind whicli 
we expected to behold the iceberg. The surf was sweep- 



46 RETREAT TO FLAT ROCK HARBOR. 

ing the black reef, that flanked the small cape, in the 
finest style, — a beautiful dance of breakers of dazzling 
white and green. As every stroke of the oars shot us 
forward, and enlarged our view of the field in which the 
ice was reposing, our hearts fairly throbbed with an ex- 
citement of expectation. " There it is ! " one exclaimed. 
An instant revealed the mistake. It was only the next 
headland in a fog, which unwelcome mist was now coming 
down upon us from the broad waters, and covering the 
very tract where the berg was expected to be seen. Fur- 
ther and further out the long, strong sweep of the great 
oars carried us, until the depth of the bay between us 
and the next headland was in full view. It may appear 
almost too trifling a matter over which to have had any 
feeling worth mentioning or remembering, but I shall not 
soon forget the disappointment, when from the deck of 
our barge, as it rose and sank on the large swells, we 
stood U23 and looked around, and saw that if the ice- 
berg, over which our very hearts had been beating with 
delight for twenty-four hours, was anj'-where, it was some- 
where in the depths of that untoward fog. It might as 
well have been in the depths of the ocean. 

While the pale cloud slept there, there was nothing 
left for us but to wait patiently where we were, or retreat. 
We chose the latter. C gave the word to pull for the 



RETREAT TO FLAT ROCK HARBOR. 47 

settlement, at the head of the little bay just mentioned, 
and so they rounded the breakers on the reef, and we 
turned away for the second time, when the game, as v/c 
had thought, was fairly ours. Even the hardy fishermen, 
no lovers of " islands-of-ice," as they call the bergs, felt 
for us, as they read in our looks the disajDpointment, not 
to say a little vexation. While on our passage in, wo 
filled a half-hour with questions and discussions about 
that iceberg. 

" We certainly saw it yesterday evening ; and a sol- 
dier of Signal Hill told us that it had been close in at 
Torbay for several days. And you, my man there, say 
that you had a glimpse of it last evening. How hap- 
pens it to be away just now ? Where do you think 
it is ? " 

"Indeed, sir, he must be out in the fog, a mile or 
over. De'il a bit can a man look after a thing in a fog 
more nor into a snow-bank. Maybe, sir, he's foundered ; 
or he might be gone off to sea altogether, as they some- 
times does." 

" Well, this is rather remarkable. Huge as these 
bergs are, they escape very easily under their old cover. 
No sooner do we think we have them, than they are gone. 
No jackal was ever more faithful to his lion, no pilot-fish 
to his shark, than the fos: to its bers;. We will run in 



48 WILLIAM WATEEMAN3 

yonder and inc[iiire about it. We may get tlie exact 
bearing, and reach it yet, even in tlie fog/' 

Tbe wind and sea being in our favor, we soon reached 
a fisliery-ladder, which we now knew very well how to 
climb, and wound our " dim and perilous way'' through 
the evergreen labyrinth of fish-bowers, emerging on the 
solid rock, and taking the path to the fisherman's house. 
Here lives and works and wears himself out, WiUiam 
Waterman, a deep-voiced, broad-chested, round-shoul- 
dered wight, dressed, not in cloth of gold, but of oil, with 
the foxy remnant of a last winter's fur cap clinging to his 
large, bony head, a little in the style of a piece of turf to 
a stone. You seldom look into a more kindly, patient 
face, or into an eye that more directly lets up the hght 
out of a large, warm heart. His countenance is one sober 
shadow of honest brown, occasionally lighted by a true 
and guileless smile. William Waterman has seen the 
" island-of-ice." "It lies off there, two miles or more, 
grounded on a bank, in forty fathoms water." 

It was nearly six o'clock ; and yet, as there were 
signs of the fog clearing away, we thought it jorudent to 
wait. A duU, long hour passed by, and still the sun was 
high in the north-west. That heavy cod- seine, a hundred 
fathoms long, sank the stern of our barge rather deeply, 
and made it row heavily. For all that, there was time 



THE FISHERMAN. 49 

enough yet, if we could only use it. The fog still came 
in masses from the sea, sweeping across the promontory 
between us and Torbay, and fading into air nearly as soon 
as it was over the land. In the mean time, we sat upon 
the rocks — upon the wood-pile — stood around and talked 
— looked out into the endless mist — looked at the fisher- 
men's houses — their children — their fowls and dogs. A 
couple of young women, that might have been teachers 
of the village school, had there been a school, belles of 
the place, rather neatly dressed, and with hair nicely 
combed, tripped shyly by, each with an arm about the 
other's waist, and very merry until abreast of us, when 
they were as silent and downcast as if they had been 
passing by their sovereign queen, or the Great Mogul. 
Their curiosity and timidity combined were quite amus- 
ing. We speculated upon the astonishment that would 
have seized upon their simple, innocent hearts, had they 
beheld, instead of us, a bevy of our city fashionables in 
full bloom. 

At length we accej)ted an invitation to walk into the 
house, and sat, not under the good-man's roof, but under 
his chimney, a species of large funnel, into which nearly 
one end of the house resolved itself Here we sat upon 
some box-like benches before a wood fire, and warmed 

ourselves, chatting with the family. While we were 
3 



50 THE FISHERMAN. 

making oursolvos comfortable and agrocablo, wo mado tlio 
novel, and rather funny discovery of a lien sitting on licr 
nest just under the bench, with her red comb at om- 
lingers' ends. A large griddle hung suspended in the 
more smoky ivgions of tho chimney, ready to bo lowered 
ior the baking of cakes or frying fish. Having tarred my 
hand, the fisherman's wife, kind woman, insisted upon 
washing it herself. After rubbing it with a little grease, 
she first scratched it with her finger-nail, and then fin- 
ished with soap and water and a good wiping with a 
a coarse towel. I begged that sho would spare herself 
the trouble, and allow me to help myself. But it was no 
trouble at all for her, and the greatest pleasure. And 
what should I know about washing off tar ? 

They were members of the Church of England, and 
seemed pleased when they found that I Avas a clergyman 
of tlie Episcopal Church. They had a pastor, who visited 
tliem and others in tho village occasionally, and held 
divine service on Sunday at Torbay, where they attended, 
gving in boats in summer, and over the hills on snow- 
shoes in tho winter. Tho woman told me, in an under- 
tone, that the fomily relations were not all agreed in 
their religious faith, and that they could not stop there 
any longer, but had gone to "America," which they liked 
much better. It was a hard eountrv, anv wav, no mat- 



THE FISHERMAN. 51 

ter whether one were Protestant or Papist. Three 
months were all their summer, and nearly all their time 
for getting ready for the long, cold winter. To be sure, 
they had codfish and potatoes, flour and butter, tea and 
sugar ; but then it took a deal of hard work to malcc 
ends meet. The winter was not as cold as we thought, 
perhaps ; but then it was so long and snowy ! The 
snow lay five, six, and seven feet deep. Wood was a 
great trouble. There was a plenty of it, but they could 
not keep cattle or horses to draw it home. Dogs were 
their only teams, and they could fetch but small loads at 
a time. In the mean while, a chubby little boy, with 
cheeks like a red apple, had ventured from behind his 
young mother, where he had kept dodging as she moved 
about the house, and edged himself up near cnougli to Ijo 
patted on the head, and rewarded for his little liberties 
with a half-dime. 



CHAPTEK XII. 

THE AVIIALES.— THE ICEBEKG.— THE KETUKN, AND TIIE EIDE TO 
St. JOHNS BY STARLIGHT. 

The sunshine was now streaming in at a bit of a win- 
dow^ and I went out to see what prospect of success. 

C , who had left some little time beforej was nowhere 

to 1)0 seen. The fog seemed to be in sufficient motion to 
disclose the berg down some of the avenues of clear air that 
were opened occasionally. They all ended, however,- with 
fog instead of ice. I made it convenient to walk to the 
boat, and pocket a few cakes, brought along as a kind of 

scattering lunch. C was descried, at length, cHmbing 

the broad, rocky ridge the eastern point of which we had 
doubled on our passage from Torbay. Making haste up 
the crags by a short cut, I joined him on the verge of the 
promontory, pretty well heated and out of breath. 

The effort was richly rewarded. The mist was dis- 



TUE WHALES. 53 

persing in the sunny air around us ; tho ocean was clear- 
ing off ; tho surge was breaking with a pleasant sound 
below. At the foot of the precipice were four or five 
whales, from thirty to fifty feet in length, apparently. 
We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times 
abreast, and then in single file, round and round they 
went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, 
then plunging into the deep again. There was something 
in their large movements very imposing, and yet very 
graceless. There seemed to be no muscular effort, no 
exertion of any force from within, and no more flexibility 
in their motions than if they had been built of timber. 
They appeared to move very much as a wooden whale 
might be supposed to move down a mighty rapid, roUing 
and plunging and borne along irresistibly by the current. 
As they rose, we could see their mouths occasionally, and 
the lighter colors of the skin below. As they went un- 
der, their huge, black tails, great winged things not un- 
like the screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the 
waves. Now and then one would give the water a good 
round slap, the noise of which smote sharply upon the 
ear, like the crack of a j)istol in an alley. It was a novel 
sight to watch them in their play, or labor rather ; for 
they were feeding upon tlie capelin, pretty little fishes 
that swarm along these shores at this particular season. 



54 THE ICEBERG. 

We could track them beneath, the surface about as -well 
as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast with the 
fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep purple. Above 
the whales the water was green, a darker green as they 
descended, a lighter green as they came up. Large oval 
spots of changeable green water, moving silently and 
shadow-like along, in strong contrast with the surround- 
ing dark, marked the places where the monsters were 
gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were 
above the waves, there was frequently a ring or ruffle of 
snowy surf, formed by the breaking of the swell,^ around 
the edges of the fish. The review of whales, the only re^ 
view we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, was, 
on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from 
it to witness another, of a more brilliant character. 

To the north and east, the ocean, dark and sparkling, 
was, by the magic action of the wind, entirely clear of 
fog ; and there, about two miles distant, stood revealed 
the iceberg in all its cold and solitary glory. It was of a 
greenish white, and of the Greek- temjDle form, seeming 
to be over a hundred feet high. We gazed some minutes 
with silent delight on the splendid and impressive object, 
and then hastened down to the boat, and pulled away 
with all speed to reach it, if possible, before the fog should 
cover it again, and in time for*C to paint it. The 



THE ICEBEEG, 55 

moderation of the oarsmen and tlie slowness of our progress 
were quite provoking. I watched the sun, the distant 
fog, the wind and waves, the increasing motion of the 
boat, and the seemingly retreating berg. A good half- 
hour's toil had carried us into broad waters, and yet, to 
all appearance, very little nearer. The wind was freshen- 
ing from the south, the sea was rising, thin mists — a 
species of scout from the main body of fog lying off in the 
east — were scudding across our track. James Goss, our 
captain, threw out a hint of a little difficulty in getting 
back. But Yankee energy was indomitable : C quiet- 
ly arranged his painting-apparatus ; and I, wrapped in my 
cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the Kttle deck,-^a 
sort of look-out. To be honest, I began to wish ourselves 
on our way back, as the black, angry-looking swells 
cliased us up, and flung the foam upon the bow and 
stern. All at once, huge squadrons of fog swept in, and 
swamped the whole of us, boat and berg, in their thin, 
white obscurity. For a moment we thought ourselves 
foiled again. But still the word was On ! And on 
they pulled, the hard-handed fishermen, now flushed 
and moist with rowing. Again the ice was visible, but 
dimly, in his misty drapery. There was no time to be lost. 

Now, or not at all. And so C began. For half an 

hour, pausing occasionally for passing flocks of fog, he 



56 THE ICEBERO. 

plied tlio brush with a rapidity not usual, and under disad- 
vantages that would have mastered a less experienced hand. 

We were getting close down upon the berg, and 
in fearfully rougli water. In their curiosity to catch 
glimpses of the advancing sketch, the men pulled with 
little regularity, and trimmed the boat very badly. Wo 

were rolling frightfully to a landsman. C begged of 

them to keep their seats, and hold the barge just there as 
near as possible. To amuse them, I passed an opera- 
glass around among them, with which they examined the 
iceberg and the coast. They turned out to be excellent 
good fellows, and entered into the spirit of the thing in a 
way that pleased us, I am sure they would have held on 

willingly till dark, if C had only said the word, 

so much interest did they feel in the attempt to paint 
the " island-of-ice." The hope was to linger about it 
until sunset, for its colors, lights and shadows. That, 
however, was suddenly extinguished. Heavy fog camo 
on, and we retreated, not with the satisfaction of a con- 
quest, nor with the disappomtment of a defeat, but 
cheered with the hope of complete success, perhaps the 

next day, when C thought that we could return upon 

our game in a little steamer, and so secure it beyond the 
possibility of escape. 

The seine was now hauled from the stern to the cen- 



TUE RETURN. 57 

tre of the barge ; and the men pulled away for Torbay, a 
long six miles, rough and chilly. For my part, I was 
trembling with cold, and found it necessary to lend a 
hand at the oars, an exercise which soon made the 
weather feel several degrees warmer, and rendered mc 
quite comfortable. After a little, the wind lulled, the 
fog dispersed again, and the iceberg seemed to contem- 
plate our slow departure with complacent serenity. We 
regretted that the hour forbade a return. It would have 
been pleasant to play around that Parthenon of the sea 
in the twilight. The best that was left us, was to look 
back and watch the effects of light, which were wonder- 
fully fine, and had the charm of entire novelty. The 
last view was the very finest. All the east front was a 
most tender blue ; the fissures on the southern face, from 
which we were rowing directly away, were glittering 
green ; the western front glowed in the yellow sunlight ; 
around were the dark waters, and above, one of the most 
beautiful of skies. 

We fell under the land presently, and passed near the 
northern cape of Flat-Rock Bay, a grand headland of red 
sandstone, a vast and dome-like pile, fleeced at the sum- 
mit with green turf and shrubs of fir. The sun, at last, 
was really setting. There was the old magnificence of 
the king of day, — airy deeps of ineffable blue and pearl, 



58 THE KETURN. 

stained with scarlets and crimsons, and striped with 
living gold. A blaze of white light, deepening into the 
richest orange, crowned the distant ridge behind which 
the snn was vanishing. A vapory splendor, rose-color 
and purple, was dissolving in the atmosphere ; and every 
wave of the ocean, a dark violet, nearly black, was " a 
flash of golden fire." Bathed with this almost supernatu- 
ral glory, the headland, in itself richly complexioned with 
red, brown and green, was at once a spectacle of singular 
grandeur and solemnity. I have no remembrance of more 
brilliant effects of light and color. The view filled us 
with emotions of deHght. We shot from beneath the 
great cliff into Flat-Kock Bay, rounding, at length, the 
breakers and the cape into the smoother waters of Tor- 
bay. As the oars dipped regularly into the polished 
swells, reflecting the heavens and the wonderful shores, 
all lapsed into silence. In the gloom of evening the 
rocks assumed an unusual height and sublimity. GHding 
quietly below them, we were saluted, every now and then, 
by the biUows thundering in some adjacent cavern. The 
song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite 
unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed 
far off in the chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trem- 
bled themselves away, muffled into stillness by the 
stupendous masses. 



THE RIDE TO ST. JOHNS BY STARLIGHT. 59 

Thus ended our first real hunting of an iceberg. 
When we landed, we were thoroughly chilled. Our man 
was waiting with his wagon, and so was a little supper in 
a house near by, which we enjoyed with an appetite that 
assumed several phases of keenness as wc proceeded. 
There was a tower of cold roast beef, flanked by bread 
and butter and bowls of hot tea. The whole was carried 
silently, without remark, at the point of knife and fork. 
We were a foiiorn-hopo of two, and fell to, winning the 
victory in the very breach. We drove back over the fine 
gravel road at a round trot, watching the last edge of 
day in the north-west and north, where it no sooner fades 
than it buds again to bloom into morning. We lived the 
new iceberg experience all over again, and planned for 
the morrow. The stars gradually came out of the cool, 
clear heavens, until they filled them with their sparkling 
multitudes. For every star we seemed to have a lively 
and pleasurable thought, which came out and ran among 
our talk, a thread of light. When we looked at the 
hour, as we sat fresh and wakeful, warming at our Eng- 
lish inn, in St. Johns, it was after midnight. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

ST. MAEY'S CnUKClI.— THE RIDE TO PETTY HAEBOE. 

Feiday^ J^mc 24, Daylight, with the street noises, 
surprised me in the very midst of the sweetest slumbers. 
I had already learned that the summer daybreak, in these 
more northern latitudes, was far enough ahead of breakfast, 
and so I flattered myself back into one of those light and 
dreamy sleeps that last, or seem to last, for several long 
and pleasant hours. When the bell aroused me, the 
day appeared old and glittering enough for noon. But it 
was only in good time for us, a little worn with the ex- 
citement and toils of the day before, and in trim to enjoy 
a good solid breakfast. All thought of revisiting the ice- 
berg of Torbay was postponed, at least for the present, 
and the day given up to previous invitations. 

At eleven o'clock, I attended the consecration of St. 
Mary's, a fine new church on the South Side, as the street 



ST. MARY'S CHURCH. 61 

on tho opposite shore of the harbor is called. As I 
walked across the bridge, conducting to that side, the 
sacred edifice, together with other buildings in the neigh- 
borhood, adorned with numerous English flags, presented, 
in contrast with the craggy mountain above, a lively and 
picturesque appearance. I may mention, by the way, that 
St. Johns might well be denominated the city of flags. 
They arc flying everywhere thick as butterflies and pop- 
pies in a Yankee garden, 

I was made acquainted with a number of clergymen, 
some of them Cambridge and Oxford men, and invited to 
take a part in the services. The sermon, preached by 
Archdeacon Lower, was remarkable for its plainness, sim- 
plicity and earnestness, a characteristic of all the sermons 
I have heard from the clergy of Bishop Field, himself a 
preacher of singular simplicity and earnestness. I could 
not avoid drawing the contrast between the simple, prac- 
tical character of this gospel preaching by accomplished 
scholars, and the florid, pompous style of many half- 
educated men in my own country. While the latter may, 
at times, stir a popular audience more sensibly with the 
fire that crackles among their brushwood of words, the 
former are infinitely superior as sound, healthy, evan- 
gelical teachers. 

On my return to the inn, I found C in his room, 



62 THE RIDE TO PETTY HARBOR. 

busily painting a duplicate of tlie berg of Torbay. Soon 
after dinner we set off, in company with Mr. Shea, for 
Petty Harbor, a small fishing port, nine or ten miles to 
the south. The road — one of the finest I ever saw, an old- 
fashioned English gravel road, smooth and hard almost as 
iron, a very luxury for the wheels of a springless wagon — 
keeps up the bank of a small river, a good-sized trout 
stream, flowing from the inland valley into the harbor of 
St. Johns. Contrasted with the bold regions that front 
the ocean, these valleys are soft and fertile. We passed 
smooth meadows, and sloping plough-lands, and green 
pastures, and houses peeping out of pretty groves. One 
might have called it a Canadian or New Hampshire vale. 
At no great distance from the town, we crossed the 
stream over such a bridge as one would be glad to find 
more frequently upon the streams at home, and gradually 
ascended to a shrubby, sterile country, with broad views 
inland. 

From the long, low hills of the western horizon, at no 
great distance, Mr. Shea informed us that there were 
prospects of Trinity Bay, of great beauty. Our road, at 
length, carried us up among the bleak coast hills, winding 
among them in a most agreeable manner, and bringing to 
view numbers of small lakes, liquid gems set in black and 
craggy banks, and wliich are all to be united by cuttings 



THK HIDE TO PETTY nARBOli. 63 

through the rocks, and then contluctcd to St. Jolnis, thus 
forming one of the completest reservoirs. 

The flowers by the wayside, mostly small and pale, 
touched the air with delicate perfume. I looked for the 
bees, but there were none abroad ; neither was there to bo 
heard the hum of insects nor warbling of birds. Now and 
then a lonely bird piped a feeble strain. We continued 
winding among the thinly- wooded hills, our wheels ringing 
along the narrow gravel road for an hour. At last we 
reached the height of land, and overlooked the ocean. 
Here we rested a few moments, rose from the seats, and 
looked around upon the majestic scene. Far out upon 
the blue were many sails, white in the bright sunshine as 
the wings of doves. The fishing boats, little schooners 
with raking masts, which swarm in these seas, were scud- 
ding under their tan-colored canvas, in all directions, 
looking like so many winged flies far down upon the 
spangled plain, a most lively and agreeable contrast to 
the desolate highlands, where you behold no dwelling, or 
field, or sign of human work, except the road, which, I 
cannot help repeating, lies among the rough hills, and 
rocky masses, as cleanly cut, and smooth as a road in a 
gentleman's park. What a token of greatness and refine- 
ment is the perfect road ! No nation makes such roads 
as these, in a land bristling with rugged difficulties, that 



64 THE RIDE TO PETTY HARBOK. 

has not wound its way up to the summit of power and 
cultivation. The savage contents himself with a path 
that is engineered and beaten by the wild beast. 

The praise which an American, used to the rough 
roads of home, is continually disposed to lavish upon 
these admirable English roads of rugged Newfoundland, 
must by no manner of means be shared by the carriages 
that travel them, things at least one hundred years be- 
hind the time. Such vehicles, on mich roads, fit about as 
well as a horseman on one of our city avenues dressed in 
the iron clothes of a crusader. No Yankee rides in them 
who does not have his laugh at their absurd strength and 
clumsiness. They are evidently intended to descend 
from father to son ; and they are just as certain to do it 
as they are to descend the hiUs, from which no common 
horse and harness can prevent them, when tolerably 
loaded. If the intelligence which designs, and executes, 
and orders these wagons about, was not British intelli- 
gence, one would not have a word to say. As it is, a little 
ridicule is at least an innocent pastime. Take off the 
box, the pleasure-box, and put upon the stalwart machine 
any thing you choose, stones, saw-logs, fire-engine, can- 
non, and all will go safely. When you return, put on your 
pleasure-box again, and you are ready for an airing, wife 
and daughters. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

PETTY nAEBOE— THE MOUNTAIN EIVEE.-COD-LIVER OIL.— THE 
EVENING KIDE BACK TO ST. JOHNS. 

To venture a geological remark : AU these coast 
highlands correspond with the summits of the Alleghanies, 

and with those regions of the Cordilleras, C tells me, 

which arc just below the snow-line. From the sea-line 
uj) to the peak, they correspond with our mountains 
above the upper belt of woods. Their icy pinnacles and 
eternal snows are floating below in the form of icebergs. 
Imagine all the mid-mountain region in the deep, and 
you have the Andes here. 

We descended in a zigzag way into a deep gorge, one 
of those cuts through the shore mountains from inland 
regions to the sea, which occasionally become fiords or 
narrow bays. Along the rocky steps, resembling galle- 
ries, were patches of grass and beds of flowering mosses, 



66 THE MOUNTAIN RIVER. 

with springs bubbling up in the spongy turf, and spin- 
ning themselves out into snowy threads from the points 
and edges of the crags. At the bottom is the little vil- 
lage of Petty Harbor, where the river, a roaring torrent, 
meets the salt tide. We alighted at a cottage, Swiss- 
like among the rocks, before we were quite down, and 
were X3leased to hear Mr. Shea, whose guests we were, 
making arrangements with a nice-looking woman for an 
abundant supper, on our return. Mr. S., in company 
with several persons who now joined us from St. Johns, 
then proceeded to show us the lions of the place, or lion 
rather, for every thin^ and everybody are run up into, and 
knit into one body, the fishery. 

In the first place, we were struck with the general 
appearance of things. The fishing flakes completely floor 
the river, and ascend in terraces for a short distance up 
the sides of the vale. Beneath these wide, evergreen 
floors, upon which was fish in all states, fresh from the 
knife, and dry enough for packing, ran the river, a brawl- 
ing stream at low tide, and deeper, silent water when the 
tide was in. We could look up the dark stream, and see it 
dancing in the mountain sunshine, and down through the 
dim forest of slender props, and catch glances of the glit- 
tering sea. Boats were gliding up out of the daylight 
into the half-darkness, slowly sculled by brown fishermen. 



THE MOUNTAIN EIVER. 67 

and freighted with the browner cod, laced occasionally 
with a salmon. In this wide and noiseless shade, these 
cool, Lethean realms, sitting upon some well-washed 
boulder, one might easily forget the heat and uproar of 
all cities, and become absorbed in the contemplation of 
merely present and momentary things. If one doubts it, 
let him immerse himself for half an hour, in those still 
and gloomy shadows, strongly seasoned with "ancient 
and fish-like smells." Should he be able to reflect upon 
the absent, or engage his thoughts upon any thing except 
that which most immediately affects his senses, he will 
possess a power of abstraction which a philosopher and a 
Brahmin might envy. 

In the course of our walk we visited a cod-liver oil 
manufactory. The process of making this article is 
quite simple. The livers, fresh from the fish, and nearly 
white, are cleanly washed, and thrown into a cauldron 
heated by steam instead of fire, where they gradually 
dissolve into oil, which is dipped out hot and strained, 
first through conical felt bags, and then through those 
made of white moleskin, from which it runs pure and 
sweet as table^oil. Wine-glasses were at hand, from 
which we tasted it, and fouDd it entirely agreeable. In 
this state it is barrelled for market, and sold at an aver- 
age price of one dollar and fifty cents per gallon. By 



68 COD-LIVER OIL. 

what process it is transmuted into that horrid stuff which 
is sold at a high price, in small bottles, perhaps the drug- 
gist can inform us. When I mentioned the character of 
cod-liver oil in New York, a gentleman present, qualified 
to decide, did not hesitate to say that it was adulterated 
with some cheap, base oil. Near by a fish-house, there 
is ordinarily seen a row of hogsheads open to the sun, and 
breathing smells that none but a fisherman can abide. 
A near approach discovers these casks to be filled with 
cod Hvers in a state of fermentation. After a few days 
in the sun, these corpulent and sweaty vessels yield a 
rancid, nauseous fluid, of a nut-brown hue, at a much 
less cost than the refined oil of the manufactory, and 
which, I imagine, must have a flavor not unhke that 
which the invalid finds lurking in those genteel flasks on 
the apothecary's shelves. After all, our common whale- 
oil, I suspect, after some cleansing and bleaching, and 
slight seasoning with the pure, is bad enough for sick 
people. 

The catch, as the fisher terms the number of fish 
taken, was small, that day, and we encountered, here and 
there, knots of idle men, smoking, chewing, whittling 
and talking. For the most part, they were a russet, tan- 
gle-haired and shaggy-bearded set, shy and gram at first, 
but presently talkative enough, and intelligent upon all 



THE EVENING RIDE BACK TO ST. JOHNS. 69 

matters in their own little world. Fish were so glutted 
with capelin that they would not bite well. The seines 
did better. Among the dwellings that we passed or en- 
tered, was one of a young English woman, of such exceed- 
ing neatness, that the painter could not forget it. That 
fine-looking, healthy, young English woman, with her bit 
of a house just as neat as wax, was often spoken of. 

Upon our return to the cottage on the hUl-side, where 
we at first alighted, we sat down, with sharp appetite, to 
a supper of fried capelin and cods' tongues, garnished 
with cups of excellent tea. We ate and drank with the 
relish of travellers, and talked of the continent from 
Greenland to Cape Horn. After supper, we climbed out 
of the valley, in advance of the wagons and our company, 
to an eminence from which C sketched the surround- 
ing scenery, more for the sake of comparison with some of 
his Andean pencillings than for any thing really new. Ho 
remarked that the wild and rocky prospect bore a strong 
resemblance to the high regions of the Cordilleras. 

While he was engaged with the pencil, I scrambled 
to a high place, and looked at the Atlantic, touched 
with long shafts of the light and shade of sunset. All 
arrived at length, and we were fairly on our way back to 
St. Johns. I buttoned my coat tightly, and wound my 
cloak around me with a pleasing sense of comfort in the 



70 THE EVENING RIDE BACK TO ST. JOHNS. 

clear and almost wintry air. AU talked somewliat loudly, 
and in the best possible good humor, our three wagons 
keeping close company, and making a pleasant sound of 
wheels, as we ran down our serpentine way among the 
hills and lakes, now darkening in the dusk, and reflecting 
the colored skies. Although there was not a water-fowl 
in sight, the words came to memory spontaneously, and 
I recited them to myself : 

"WMtlier, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue 
Thy solitary way ? " 

As we approached the town, we were much amused 
with some boyish sports of a new kind. We saw what 
appeared through the darkness to be balls of fire, chasing 
each other down the craggy hill-side, but which turned 
out to be a company of frolicsome boys with lighted 
torches, bounding down the zigzag mountain road. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE CnUECn SHIP.— THE HEEO OF KAES.— THE MISSIONAKY OF 
LABEADOE. 

Saturday, June 25. This has been a quiet day, 
mostly spent in making calls and social visits. At an 
early hour, in company with Mr. Newman, the consul, 
we visited the Church Ship, a pretty vessel of not more 
than sixty tons, called the Hawk, a name suggested by 
that line in the Odyssey, where the poet says, " the aus- 
picious bird flew under the guidance of God." By an 
ingenious arrangement, the cabin, which is a large part of 
the vessel, can be changed, in a few minutes, from state- 
rooms into a saloon, which, again, by a slight alteration, 
becomes a chapel. In this, at once home and church, the 
Bishop visits not only the harbors and islands of New- 
foundland and Labrador, but the island of Bermuda. It 
was the gift of the Rev. Robert Eden, a clergyman of 



72 THE HERO OF KARS. 

England, some twelve years ago, and has been employed 
in that benevolent and sacred service ever since, with the 
promise of the same for years to come. There are now 
more than forty settled clergymen and missionaries along 
those cold and rugged shores, who are visited from time 
to time by their Bishop in this bold little ship, which I 
shall dismiss for the present, for the reason that there 
will be occasion to speak of it again. 

From the Bishop's ship we went to his house, where 
we hjad the honor of an introduction to General Williams, 
the hero of Kars, and to Colonel Law, one of the few 
now living who distinguished themselves at the battle of 
Waterloo. In the presence of one who had mingled in 
the grand scenes of Napoleon and the Duke of Welling- 
ton, emotions of admiration were spontaneous. The hero 
of Kars stands foremost among what arc called fine- 
looking military men, — a tall, commanding person, with 
a most pleasing address. 

Wo closed the day with the consul, who invited to 
join us the Rev. George Hutchinson, a nephew of the 
poet Wordsworth, and accustomed, in his youthful days, 
to see at his uncle's such literary worthies as Lamb and 
Southey. He talked much of Hartley Coleridge, of whose 
abilities he had a high opinion. Southey, of all, seemed 
to be his admiration. He was, all in all, indeed a won- 



THE MISSIONARY OF LAnRADOll. 73 

deiful man; a perfect Hercules in literary labors. A few 
years ago, Mr. Hutchinson, moved by a religious spirit, 
was induced to give up a pleasant living in Dorsetsliire, 
under the Malvern Hills, and devote himself to the toils 
and privations of a missionary in Labrador. Upon the 
death of his mother he went home, over a year ago, and 
became possessed of a small property. He has returned 
recently, and is now waiting for an opportunity to get 
back to Labrador. This meeting and conversation with 
the Eev. George Hutcliinson, has turned out to be of more 

than ordinary interest. C has determined to hire a 

vessel for a month, and set the missionary down in the 
midst of his people, without farther trouble. We retired, 
pleasantly excited with visions of icebergs and northern 
coast scenery, and with thoughts of preparation for the 
voyage. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SUNDAY EVENma AT THE BISIIOP'S.-TIIE EEV. MK. "WOOD'S TALK 
ABOUT ICEBEEGS. 

Monday, June 27. We attended clmrcli, yesterday, 
at the catliedral, wliere we heard practical sermons and 
fine congregational singing. The evening was passed at 
the Bishop's, when the conversation was about Ox- 
ford, and Keble, English parsonages, and Christian art. 
A few ]joems were read from Kehle's Christian Year, 
and commented upon by the Bishop, who is a personal 
friend and admirer of the poet. Before the company 
separated, all moved into a very beautiful private chapel, 
and closed the evening with devotions. 

This has been a bright day, and favorable for our 
preparations. We took tea with the Consul, and had 
the pleasure of meeting the Eev. Mr. Wood, the Eector 
of St. Thomas', on.e of the city churches ; who has true 



THE llEV. MR. wood's TALK ABOUT ICEBERGS. 75 

feeling, and a thorougli appreciation of fine Bcenerj^, and 
whose descriptive abilities are rare. He says that an ice- 
berg is to him the most impressive of all objects. Most 
beautiful in its life and changes, it i?, next to an carth- 
qi^ake, most terrible and appalling, in the moment of its 
destruction, to those who may happen to be near it. 
Upon the falling of its peaks and precipices, waves and 
thunders carry the intelligence across the waters. Lofty 
as it frequently is, the head only, helmeted and plumed 
with dazzling beauty, is above the sea. In its solemn 
march along the blue main, how it steps upon the high 
places of the deep, is all unseen. Around its mighty 
form, far down its alabaster cliffs and caverns, no eye plays 
but that of the imagination. When it pauses in its last 
repose, and perishes, at times, as quickly as if it were 
smitten by the lightning, you may stand in the distance 
and gaze with awe, but never draw near to witness the 
motions and sounds of its dissolution. After tea, we sat 
by the windows, which face the east and command the 
harbor, with its grand entrance from the Atlantic, and 
enjoyed the scene, one of unusual splendor, every cliff 
glowing with hues of reddish orange. 



CHAPTEK XVII. 

OtTK VESSEL FOE LABKADOK.— WEECK OP THE AEGO-THE FISHEE- 
MAN'S EUNEEAL. 

Wednesday, June 29. We are far advanced in our 
preparations for the voyage. Yesterday and to-day, we 
have been busily engaged, and now see the way clear for 
leaving to-morrow morning. Bishop Field, who, with 

many others, is pleased that has volunteered to take 

Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Botwood, his associate, to Lab- 
rador, sailed on the visitation of his extended diocese to- 
day. The Church Ship, wliich we visited in the morning, 
looked, in her perfect order and neatness, with her signal 
guns and her colors flying, quite like a little man-of-war. 
We shall foUow for awhile in her track, but with no ex- 
pectation of seeing her again. 

Allow me now to take you to the wharf, and show 
you the craft which C has selected for his novel, and 



OUR VESSEL FOR LABRADOR. 77 

somewhat perilous expedition. Here slic lies, the Integ- 
rity, of Sydney, Cape Breton, a pinlt-sterned schooner, of 
only sixty-five tons, but reputed safe and a good sailer. 
Her forecastle contains the skipper and mate, a young 
man of twenty-two, the owner of the vessel, and three 
men, the youngest an overgrown Scotch lad, who has heen 
serving, and will continue to serve us, in the capacity of 
cook. Her cabin is for Captain Knight, the commander, 
pro tem., with whom you will be made much better ac- 
quainted. Just forward of the cabin, in the hold, there 
has been a temporary cabin partitioned off, and furnished 
with beds, bedding, chairs and table ; in short, with every 
necessary article for the comfort and convenience of five 
individuals. In this snug little room, and in the hold, 
laden only with a light stone baUast, are stores and pro- 
visions, of the very best quality, for two full months, 
wood and water to be taken along shore as need shall re- 
quire. 

At C 's sole expense, and under his control, this 

vessel is to cruise for a few weeks in the region of the ice- 
bergs, setting down the missionaries by the way. The sheet 
anchor and mainstay (I begin to speak the language of 
the mariner) of our hopes of a pleasant and successful 
trip, humanly speaking, is Captain Knight, a respected 
citizen of St. Johns, and an accomplished sailor, whom 



78 WEECK OF THE AKGO, 

C has had the good fortune to secure as master, 

pilot, and companion". 

"We have been startled by the intelligence, that the 
Argo, of the Galway line of steamers, from New York to 
Scotland, is ashore at St. Shotts, near Cape Eace. As 
usual, a variety of reports have agitated the community, 
and made people look with eagerness for the return of the 
two small harbor steamers, which Mr. Shea, the agent for 
that line, dispatched yesterday to the scene of distress. 
One of the tugs, the Blue Jacket, has at length arrived 
with a part of the passengers in sad plight. It is the old 
story of shipwreck on these rocky coasts. Wrapped in 
fogs, and borne forward by a powerful current, the ill-fated 
ship struck the shore, a few moments after it was jiiscov- 
ered. Providentially, it was calm weather, and the sea 
unusually quiet, or all had perished. As it was, all went 
safely to land, and encamped in the woods. Numbers of 
the passengers, saddened by the loss of trunks containing 
clothing and other valuables, excited and fatigued, tell 
bitter stories of carelessness and inefficiency. 

While, with a crowd of people, we were at the pier, 
awaiting the arrival of the Blue Jacket, a funeral pro- 
cession of boats with little white flags, half-pole, came 
slowly rowing in from sea, and across the harbor, and 
landed with the coffin near where we were standing;. Not 



THIk fisherman's FUNERAL. 79 

only the relatives were dressed in mourning, but the 
bearers. There were long flowing weeds of black crape 
upon all their hats, and wide white cambric cuffs upon 
the sleeves of their coats. They were of the fishing class, 
from some village up or down the coast, and conducted 
matters apparently with more dispatch than mournfid- 
ness. A hearse or black carriage, of very substantial 
make, with a high top, and white fringe or valance de- 
pending from its eaves instead of curtains, was waiting 
on the wharf, attended by a man with a flag of white 
linen attached to his hat. 

Among our last calls to-day, was one of ceremony 
upon Sir Alexander and Lady Bannerman, from whom 
we had received an invitation to dine. Her ladyship, a 
fine-looking person, of graceful and dignified manners and 

pleasing conversation, talked with interest of C 's 

excursion, and particularly of that part of it relating to 
his carrying Mr. Hutchinson to Labrador. After taking 
our leave, we went with Mr. Newman to look after some 
fireworks, which his Excellency has been pleased to order 
for our amusement at night among the icebergs. 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

OUE FIEST EVENING AT SEA 

• 

Thuksday evening, June 30. At sea. I am now 
writing, for the first time to-day, by tlie candles on our 
table in the main cabin of the Integrity. We are sailing 
northward with a fair wind, but with fog and rather 
rough water. But let me go back, and take the day 
from the beginning, passing lightly over its labors and 
vexations. 

The morning opened upon us brilliantly, and all were 
employed about those many little things which only can 
be done at the last moment. Noon came and an early 
dinner, before that all were in readiness and aboard. And 
then, as if in retaliation for our delay during so many 
lovely hours, the wind was not ready, and so we were 
obliged to be towed by the Blue Jacket quite out into 
broad water, where she left us with our colors quivering 



OUR FIRST EVENING AT SEA. 81 

in the sunsliine, and all our canvas swelling in a mild 
southerly breeze. The coast scenery, and the iceberg of 
Torbay, and the last gleams of sunset upon land and 
ocean, were the lions of the afternoon. 

We have taken our first tea, counting, with a lad in 
the charge of Mr. Hutchinson, six around the table, and 
making, with the crew, eleven souls, quite a little congre- 
gation, could all be s^oared to attend the short morning 
and evening services. We are just beginning to feel the 
effects of a small vessel with no lading beyond a light 
ballast. She rolls excessively, rises with every swell, and 
pitches into the succeeding hollow. This has already be- 
gun to disperse our company to their berths, as the more 
comfortable place for the random conversation which will 
close the day. 

4* 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ICEBEKGS OF THE OPEN SEA. -THE OCEAN CHASE.— THE EETEEAT TO 
CAT HAEBOK. 

Feiday, July 1. The fog is so dense that the rigging 
drips as if it rained. In fact, if it be not the finest of 

all rain, then it is the thickest of all mists. C and I 

are sea-sick, almost a§ a matter of course, and look upon 
aU preparations for breakfast with no peculiar satisfac- 
tion. Our consolation is, that we are sailing forward, 
although with only very moderate speed. 

Delightful change ! It is clearing up. The noon- 
day sun is showering the dark ocean, here and there, 
with the whitest light. And lo ! an iceberg on our left. 
Lo ! an iceberg on our right. An iceberg ahead ! Yes, 
two of them ! — four ! — five — six ! — and there, a white 
pinnacle just pricking above the horizon. Wonderful to 
behold, there are no less than thirteen icebergs in fair 



THE OCEAN CHASE. 83 

view. We run forward, and tlien we run aft, and then 
to this side, and that. We lean towards them over the 
railing, and spring up into the shrouds, as if these boyish 
efforts brought us nearer, and made them plainer to our 
delighted eyes. With a quiet energy, C betakes him- 
self to painting, and I to my note-book. But can you tell 
me why I pause, almost put up the pencil, and pocket 
the book .^ I am only a little sea-sick. The cold sweat 
starts upon the forehead, and I feel pale. We bear away 
now, such is the order, for the largest berg in sight. I 
freshen again with the growing excitement of this novel 
chase, and feel a pleasurable sense of freedom that I can 
never describe. I could bound like a deer, and shout Hke 
the wild Indian, for very joj'-. The vessel seems to sym- 
pathize, and spring forward with new spirit. The words 
leap out of the memory, and I give them a good strong 
voice : 

" O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, 
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free." 

Indeed, there is a hearty pleasure in this freedom of the 
ocean, when, as now with us, it is " all before you where 
to choose." Tied to no task, fettered to no line of voyage, 
to no scant time allowanced, the sliip, the ocean and the 
day, are ours. Like the poet's river, that '^ windeth at its 



84 THE OCEAN CHAISE. 

own sweet will/' our wishes flow down the lucandenng 
channel of circumstances, and wo go with the current. 

And how lo^•cly the prospect as we go ! That this is 
all God's own world, which he holdeth in the hollow of 
his hand, is manifest from the impartial "bestowal of 
beauty. No apple, peach or rose is more within one net- 
work ivf sweet, living grace, than the round world. ITow 
wonderful and precious a thing must this beauty be, that 
it is thus all-pervading, and universal ! Here on these 
bleak and barren shores, so rocky, rough and savage, is a 
rich and delicate splendor that amazes. The pure azure 
of the skies, and the deeply blue waters, one would think 
were sufficient for rude and fiiiitless regions such as these. 
But look, how they shine and scintillate ! The iron 
cheeks of yonder headland blush with glory, and the 
west is all magnificent. Gaze below into the everlasting 
evening of the deep. Glassy, glittering things, like chan- 
deliers dispersed, twinkle in the lluid darkness. The 
very fishes, clad in purple and satin, silvery tissues and 
cloth-of-gold, seem to move with colored lights. God 
hath apparelled all his creatures, and we call it beauty. 

As we approach the bergs, they assume a great variety 
of forms. Indeed, their changes are quite wonderful. In 
passing around a single one, we see as good as ten, so 
protean is its character. I know of no object in all 



THE OCEAN OlIAaiO. 85 

nature so marvclously scnsitivo to a steady gaze. Sit 
motionless, and look at one, and, fixture as it appears, it 
has its changes then. It marks with unerring Itiithful- 
ness every condition of atmosphere, and every amount 
of light and shadow. Thus manifold complexions trem- 
ble over it, for which the careless observer may see no 
reason, and many shapes, heights and distances swell and 
shrink it, move it to and from, of which the mind may 
not readily assign a cause. 

The large iceberg, for which we bore away this morn- 
ing, resembled, at one moment, a cluster of Chinese 
buildings, then a Gothic cathedral, early style. It was 
curious to see how all that mimicry of a grand religious 
pile was soon transmuted into something like the Coliseum, 
its vast interior now a delicate blue, and then a greenish 
white. It was only necessary to run on half a mile to 
find this icy theatre split asunder. An age of ruin ap- 
peared to have passed over it, leaving only the two ex- 
tremes, the inner cliffs of one a glistening white, of the 
other, a blue, soft and airy as the July heavens. 

In the neighborhood, were numbers of block-like bergs, 
which, when thrown together by our perpetual change of 
position, resembled the ruins of a marble city. The play 
of the light and shadows among its inequalities was 
charming in the extreme. In the outskirts of this Pal- 



8() THE EETREAT TO CAT HARBOll. 

myra of the waves, lay a berg closely resembling a Imge 
ship of war, with the stern submerged, over which the 
surf was brealdug linely, while the stem, sixty or seventy 
feet aloft, with what the fancy easily shaped into a majes- 
tic figure-head, looked with fixed serenity over the dis- 
tant waters. As we ran athwart .the bow, it changed in- 
stantly into the appearance of some gigantic sculpture, 
with broad surfaces as smooth as polished ivory, and with 
salient points cut with wonderful perfection. The dash- 
ing of the waves sounded lilvC the dashing at the foot of 
rocky clifls, indicative of the mass of ice below the sur- 
face. 

As the afternoon advances the breeze strengthens, 
blowing sharply off to sea. We have the most brilliant 
sunshine, with a clear, cold, exhilarating air. It very 
nearly dispels all the nausea caused by this excessive 
rolling. We are now beating up from the cast toward 
the land, and passing several of the bergs, in the chase 
of which we have spent so many joyous hours. Every 
few minutes we have new forms and new eflects, new 
thoughts and fresh emotions. The grand ruins of the 
Oriental deserts, hunted on the fleetest coursers, would 
awaken, I fiincy, kindred feelings. Full of shadowy sub- 
limities are these great broken masses, as we sweep 
around them, fall away, tack and return again. 



THE KETREAT TO CAT IIAllBOR. 87 

I never could have felt, and so must not think of 
making others feel through the medium of language, the 
possibility of being so deceived in respect of the bulk of 
these islands-of-ice, as our sailors always call them. 
What seems, in the distance, a mere piece of ice, of good 
snow-bank size only, is really a mass of such dimensions 
as to require you to look up to it, as you sail around it, 
and feel, as you gaze, a sense of grandeur. What you 
might sujipose could be run down as easily as a pile of 
light cotton, would wreck the proudest clipper as effectu- 
ally as the immovable adamant. 

Between the great northern current, and the breeze 
•which plumes the innumerable waves with sparkling 
white, our course has become rather more tortuous and 
rough than is agreeable to landsmen who have only come 
abroad upon the deep for pleasure and instruction. The 
painter has cleaned his pallet, wiped his brushes, shut his 
painting-box, and gone below. I am sitting here, near 
the helm, close upon the deck, screened from the spray 
that occasionally flies over, heavily coated, and cold at 
that, maldng some almost illegible notes. Life, it is 
often said, is a stormy ocean. It is on the. ocean, cer- 
tainly, that one feels the wTiole force of the comparison. 

The wind, which is blowing strongly, is getting into 
the north, dead ahead, and sweeping us away upon our 



88 THE RETKEAT TO CAT HAEBOR. 

back track. We are too lightly ballasted to tack with 
success, and hold our own. The bergs are retiring, and 
appear like ruins and broken columns. We are now fairly 
on the retreat, and flying under reefed sails to a little bay, 
called Cat Harbor. All aloft has the tightness and the 
ring of drums, and the whistling of a hundred fifes. The 
voice of the master is quick, and to the point, and the 
motions and the footsteps of the men, rapid. On our 
bows are the explosion and the shock of swells, the re- 
sounding knocks and calls of old Neptune, and upon the 
deck such showers of his most brilliant flowers and 
bouquets as I feel in no haste to gather. The sea-fowl 
whirl in the gale like loose plumes and papers, pouring 
out their wild complaints as they pass. 



CHAPTER XX. 

CAT HARBOE.— EVENING SERVICE IN CnUEClI.— THE FISUEEMAN'S 
FIEE.— THE EETUEN AT MIDNIGHT. 

At eight o'clock, our brave little pink-stern was lying 
at anchor in her haven, as quietly as a babe in its cradle, 
with the wind piping a pleasant lullaby in the rigging, 
and the roar of the ocean nearly lost in the distance. 
A few rude erections along the rocky shore, with a small 
church, a store and warehouse, compose the town of Cat 
Harbor, the life of which seems to be the water-craft 
busy in the one common employment, some returning 
with the catch of the day, others going for the catch of 

the night. While C was painting a sketch of the 

scene, the sun vanished behind the purple inland hills, 
with unusual splendor, and left the distant icebergs in 
such a white " as no fuller on earth can white them." 

After dinner, notwithstanding the lateness of the 



90 EVENING SERVICE IN CHUECH, 

hour, Mr. Hutcliinson, who knew that the clergyman in 
charge was absent, resolved to go ashore, and invite the 
people to attend divine service. As soon as we were 
landed, he left us to make our way to the church, at our 
leisure, while he ran from house to house to announce 
himself, and to give notice of the intended services. Our 
path, as usual in these coast hamlets, went in zigzag, 
serpentine ways, among evergreen fishing-bowers, and 
many-legged flakes and huts, and oddly-fenced potato- 
patches. In the marshy field around the church, we had 
some time to amuse ourselves with gathering slender bul- 
rushes tipped with plumes of whitest down. They were 
sprinkled all abroad like snow-flakes over the dusky green 
ground, and we ran about with the eagerness of boys, 
selecting the prettiest as specimens for home. 

Twilight was already close upon the darkness. We 
turned from the chase of our thistle-down toys, and 
gazed upon the solemn magnificence around us — the 
dark and lonesome land — the bay, reflecting the colored 
heavens— the warm orange fading out into the cool pearl, 
and the pearl finally lost in the broad blue above. 

It was fully candle-light when the congregation, 
about forty, assembled, and the service began. The mis- 
sionary preached extempore a practical sermon adapted 
to his hearers, and we sang, to the tune of Old Hundred, 



THE fisherman's FlllE. 91 

the One Hundredth Psahii, making the dimly- lighted 
sanctuary ring again. After church, our party were in- 
vited to warm at one of the houses, which we did most 
effectually before a broad and roaring fire, while mine 
host recounted the toil and the pleasure of getting winter 
wood over the deep snows with his team of dogs, and the 
more perilous and exciting labors of the fish-harvest, 
upon which life and all depend. At the mention of the 
puff-pig, the local name for the common porpoise, we in- 
dulged ourselves in a childish laugh. A more ludicrous, 
and at the same time a more descriptive name could not 
be hit upon. 

During the half-hour around the exhilarating July 
fire, there dropped in, one by one, a room-full, curious to 
see and hear the strangers from St. Johns and America, 
as the United States are often called. We parted with a 
general shaking of hands, and plenty of good wishes, 
among which was one, " that we might have many igh 
hicebergs." Some half dozen attended us to the shore, 
and brought us ofii" in handsome style over the calm and 
phosphorescent waters. At every dip of the oars it was 
like unraking the sparkling embers, so brilliant was that 
beautiful light of the sea. The boatmen called it the burn- 
ing of the water. " When the water burnt," they said, 
" it was a sure sign of south wind and a plenty of fish." 



92 THE RETURN AT MIDNIGHT. 

It was one of those still and starry nights wHch re- 
quire only an incident or so to make them too beautiful 
ever to be forgotten. Those incidents were now present, 
in a peculiarly plaintive murmur of the ocean, the kin- 
dling waves, and a delicate play of the Aurora Borealis. 
When we reached our vessel it was almost midnight, and 
still there was sweet daylight in the far north-west, mov- 
ing along the circle of the northern horizon to brighten 
into morning before we were half through our light and 
dreamy slumbers. Weary and drowsy, all have crept to 
their berths ; and I will creep into mine when I have put 
the period to the notes of this long and delightful day. 
I hear the footfalls of the watch on deck. May God keep 
us through the short, but most solitary night, and speed 
us early on our northern voyage ! 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

AFTER ICEBERGS AGAIN. — AMONG THE SEA-FOWL. 

Saturday, Juhj 2. It is five o'clock, and tlie morn- 
ing has kindled in tlie clouds its brightest fires. We are 
moving off to sea gracefully before a fair, light wind. 
The heart delights in this golden promise of a fine sum- 
mer day, and the blue Atlantic all before us. As the 
rising sun looks over it, the glittering waves seem, to par- 
ticipate in these joyful emotions. How marvelously 
beautiful is this vast scene ! Give me the sea, I say, 
now that I am on the sea. Give me the mountains, I 
say, when I am on the mountains ! Henceforth, when 
I am weary with the task of life, I will cry, Give me the 
mountains a7id the sea. 

The rugged islands, landward, have only an olive, not 
the living green, and seem never to have rejoiced in the 
blessing of a tree, or felt the delicious mercy of a leafy 



94 AMONG THE SEA-FOWL. 

shade. There blow the whales, and here is the edge of 
an innumerable multitude of sca-hirds feeding upon the 
capelin, and flying to the right and left, thick as grass- 
hoppers, as we advance among them. Poor things, they 
arc so glutted that they are obliged to disgorge before 
they can gain the wing, and many of them merely scram- 
ble aside a few yards, and become the mark of the 
roguish sailors, especially of Sandy, our young Scotch 
cook, who is in a perfect frolic, pelting them with stones. 
They sprinkle the sea by the million, and present, with 
their white breasts and perpetually arching wings, a 
lively and novel appearance. On the roll of the swells, 
as the sunlight glances on them, they flash out white 
like water-lilies. 

How the pages of a book fiil to cany these scenes 
into the heart ! I have been reading of them for years, 
and, as I have thought, reading understandingly and 
feelingly ; but I can now say that I have never known, 
certainly never felt them until now. The living presence 
of them has an originality, a taste and odor for the 
imagination, which can never be expressed even by the 
vivid and sensuous language of the painter, much less by 
the more subtle, intellectual medium of written records. 
It is so new and fresh to nie, that I feel as if none had 
over seen this prospect before. Old and fimiliar as these 



AMONG THE SEA-FOWL. 95 

waters are, I am thrilled with emotions, kindred to those 
of a discoverer, and remember and repeat the rhyme of 
the Ancient Mariner : 

We woro the first that over burst 
Into that silent sea. 

Silent sea ! This is any thing but that. The surf, which 
leajis up with the lightness and rapidity of flames, for 
many and many a white mile, roars among the sharp, 
bleak crags of the islands and the coast like mighty 
cataracts. Words of the Psalmist fall naturally upon 
the tongue, and I speak them in low tones to myself : 

Voices are heard among them. 
Their sound is gone out iuto all lands. 

" And so sail we," this glorious morning, after the ice- 
bergs, several of which stand sentinel along our eastern 
horizon ; but we do not turn aside for them, for the reason 
that we confidently look for others more closely on our 
proper track. 



CHAPTEE XXn. 

NOTEE DAME BAT.— FOGO ISLAND AND THE THREE HUNDRED 
ISLES.— THE FEEEDOM OP THE SEAS.— THE ICEBEEG OF THE 
SUNSET, AND THE FLIGHT INTO TWILLINGATE. 

After noon, with tlie faintest breeze, and tlie sea 
like a flowing mirror. We have sailed by the most east- 
ern promontories. Cape Bonavista and Cape Freels, and 
have now arrived at a point where the coast falls off far 
to the west, and gives place to Notre Dame Bay, the 
great Archipelago of Newfoundland, of which there is 
comparatively little known. Our true course is nearly 
north, and along the eastern or Atlantic side of Fogo, 
which is now before us, the first and largest of some three 
hundred islands. For the sake of the romantic scenery, 
we conclude to take the inside route. 

From the shores of Fogo, which are broken, and ex- 
ceedingly picturesq[ue further on, as Captain Knight in- 
forms us, the land rises into moderate hills, thinly wooded 



FOGO ISLAND AND THE THREE HUNDEED ISLES. 97 

with, evergreens, with here and there a little farm and 
dwelling. Perhaps there are twenty rural smokes in 
sight and a spire or two. Under the full-blown summer 
all looks pleasant and inviting. What will not the glori- 
ous sunshine bless and beautify ? A dark and dusty 
garret wakes up to life and brightness, give it an open 
window and the morning sun. 

The western headlands of Fogo are exceedingly at- 
tractive, lofty, finely broken, of a red and purplisb brown, 
tinted here and there with pale green. The painter 
is busy with his colors. As we pass the bold prominences 
and deep, narrow bays or fiords, they are continually 
changing and surprising us with a new scenery. And 
now the great sea-wall, on our right, opens and discloses 
the harbor and village of Fogo, the chief place of the 
island, gleaming in the setting sun as if there were flames 
shining through the windows. Looking to the left, all 
the western region is one fine iEgean, a sea filled with a 
multitude of isles, of manifold forms and sizes, and of every 
height, from mountain pyramids and crested ridges down 
to rounded knolls and tables, rocky ruins split and shat- 
tered, giant slabs sliding edgewise into the deep, columns 
and grotesque masses ruffled with curling surf — the Cyc- 
lades of the west. I climb the shrouds, and behold fields 

and lanes of water, an endless and beautiful network, a 
. 5 



98 THE FREEDOM OP THE SEAS. 

little Switzerland with her vales and gorges filled with 
the purple sea. 

After dinner, and nearly sunset. We are breaking 
away from the isles into the open Atlantic, bearing 
northerly for Cape St.. John, where Captain Knight prom- 
ises the very finest coast scenery. Far away on the blue, 
floats a solitary pyramid of ice, while a few miles to the 
cast of us there stands the image of some grand Capitol, 
in shining marble. Looking back upon the isles, as they 
retire in the south and west, with the hues of sunset upon 
their green and cloud-like blue, we behold, the painter 
tells me, a likeness to some West-Indian views. 

Once again the breeze swells every sail, and we arc 
speeding forward after the icebergs. All goes merrily. 
It sings and cracks aloft, and roars around the j)row. We 
speed onward. The little ship, like a very falcon, flies 
down the wind after the game, and promises to reach it 
by the last of daylight. A long line of gilding tracks the 
violet sea, and expands in a lake of dazzling brightness 
under the sun. Beneath all this press of sail, we ride on, 
fast and steadily, as a car over the prairies. We seem to 
be all alive. This is fine, inexpressibly fine ! This is 
freedom ! I lean forward and look over the bow, and, 
like a rider in a race, feel a new delight and excitement. 
Wonderful and beautiful ! Like the Arab on his sands. 



THE ICEBERG OF THE SUNSET. 99 

I say, almost involuntarily, God is great ! How soft is 
the feeling of this breeze, and bow balmy is the smell, 
" like the smell of Lebanon," and yet how powerful to 
bear us onward ! We rise and bow gracefully to the 
passing swells, but keep right on. Fogo is sinking in the 
south, a line of roseate heights, and fresh ice sparkles 
like stars on the northern horizon. 

We dart off a mile or more from our right path in 
order to bring a small berg between us and the sun, that 
we may look into his sunset beauties. A dull cloud, close 
down upon the waves, may defeat this mana3uvre. We 
shall conquer yet. There, he rises from the sea, a sphinx 
of pure white against the glowing sky, and every man 
aboard is as full of fine excitement as if we were to grap- 
ple with, and chain him. We pass directly under the 
great face, the upper line of which overlooks our top- 
mast. Every curve, swell and depression have the finish 
of the most exquisite sculpture, and all drips with silvery 
water as if newly risen from the deep. In the pure, 
white mass there is the suspicion of green. Every wave, 
by contrast, and by some optical effect, nearly black as 
it approaches, is instantly changed into the loveliest 
green as it rolls up to the silvery bright ice. And all 
the adjacent deep is a luminous pea-green. The eye 
follows the ice into its awful depths, and is at once star- 



100 THE ICEBERG OF THE SUNSET. 

tied and delighted to find tliat the mighty crystal hangs 
suspended in a vast transparency, or floats in an abyss of 
liquid emerald. 

We pass on the shadow side, soft and delicate as satin, 
and changeable as costliest silk ; the white, the dove- 
color and the green playing into each other with the sub- 
tlety and fleetness of an Aurora-Borealis. As the light 
streams over and around from the illuminated side, the 
entire outline of the berg shines like newly-burnished sil- 
ver in the blaze of noon. The painter is working with all 
possible rapidity ; but we pass too quick to harvest all 
this beauty : he can only glean some golden straws. A 
few sharp words from the captain bring the vessel to, and 
we pause long enough for some finishing touches. He 
has them, and we are off again. An iceberg is an object 
most diflS.cult to study, for which many facilities, much 
time, and some danger are indispensable. The voyager, 
passing at a safe distance, really knows little or nothing 
of one. 

Ten o'clock, and only twilight. We are now about 
to put up note-book and painting-box, and join our Eng- 
lish companions in a walk up and down our little deck. 
Notwithstanding their familiarity with icebergs, they ap- 
pear to enjoy them with as keen a zest as we, now that 
they are brought into this familiar contact with them. 



FLIGHT INTO TWILLINGATE. 101 

After the walk, and by candlc-liglit in the cabin. The 
wind is strengthening, and promises a gale. The black 
and jagged coast of Twillingate island, to the south, 
frowns upon us, and the great pyramid berg of sunset 
awaits us close at hand. For some time past, it has 
borne the appearance of the cathedral of Milan, shorn of 
all its pinnacles, but it now resumes its pyramidal form, 
and towers, in the dusk of evening, to a great height. 
After a brief consultation, we resolve to slip into the har- 
bor of Twillingate, a safe retreat from the coming storm, 
and there pass our first Sunday out of- St. Johns. To 
dare this precipitous coast, haunted with icebergs, and a 
gale blowing right on, in so light a craft as ours, would 
be rash. Much as I wish to make the most of our time, 
I am glad to find that we are making harbor, and intend 
to rest, according to the law. 

I cannot take my mind's eye from the brilliant spec- 
tacle of the waves in conflict with the iceberg. I still 
hear the surf in the blue chasms. But with all the power 
of its charge, it is the merest toy to the great arctic mass, 
a playful kitten on the paws of the lion. 

After ten, and after prayer. We arc rolling most un- 
comfortably while we are beating towards our anchorage 
between the headlands of the harbor. It is midnight 
nearly, and yet I am not in the least sleepy. The day is 



102 FLIGHT INTO TWILLINGATE. 

SO lengthyj and we are so continually stimulated with the 
grandeur and novelty of these scenes that it is quite 
troublesome to sleep at all. A few hours of slumber^ so 
thin that the sounds on deck easily break through and 
wake the mind, is about all I have, "We are coming 
about, and roll down almost upon the vessel's side. The 
sails are loose, and roar in the breeze. The anchor drops 
home to its bed. The chain rattles and runs its length. 
We repose in safe waters, and I turn in thankfully to my 
berth. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

THE SUNDAY IN TWILLINGATE.-THE MOKNING OF THE FOURTH. 

Monday Morning, July 4, 1859. We were roused 
from our slumbers very suddenly, yesterday morning, by 
Mr. Hutchinson, in a loud and cheerful voice, telling us 
the pleasing news that the Church Ship was at anchor 
near by, and that he had exchanged salutations with the 
Bishop. His vessel had lost a spar in the same squall 
that drove us into Cat Harbor. To that accident we 
owed the pleasure of meeting him in Twillingate, and of 
passing a profitable and happy Lord's day. The wind 
was blowing a perfect gale, and roared among the ever- 
green woods on the surrounding hills. At half-past ten, 
the Bishop's boat glided alongside, and bore us ashore, 
from which we walked past the church, through the assem- 
bling congregation, to the house of the Eector, the Eev. 
Thomas Boone, where we joined the Bishop and two or 



104 THE MORNING OF THE FOUKTH. 

three of the leading persons of the island. There were 
tlie regular morning and evening services, and a third 
service at night, completed though hy good strong day- 
light. The house was filled, and the sermons plain and 
practical, their burden being repentance, faith in Christ, 
and obedience to his law. After supper, and a social 
hour with the Eector and his family, we returned to our 
vessels respectively, the north-western sky still white 
with daylight, and the thunder of the ocean breaking 
with impressive grandeur upon the solemn repose, into 
which all nature seemed gladly to have fallen after the 
tempest. 

I was up this morning at an early hour, and away 
upon the hills with Mr. Hutchinson and Master WiUiam 
Boone, a fine youth of fifteen, for our guide and compan- 
ion. The main object was to get a view of the iceberg 
of Saturday evening. To my surprise and disappoint- 
ment, the ocean was one spotless blue. The berg had 
foundered, or gone off to sea. It was barely possible that 
it lay behind a lofty headland, beneath which we passed 
in making the harbor. To settle a question, which in 
some measure involved the pleasure of the day, we 
climbed a rocky peak beset with brushwood, and descried 
the berg close in upon the headland apparently, and, as 
I supposed, rapidly diminishing, a lengthy procession of 



THE MORNING OF THE FOURTH. 105 

fragments moving up the coast. Looking south, there 
was unrolled to view, sj^read out from cast to west, the 
splendid island scenery of Notre Dame Bay, already de- 
scribed. A single reach of water, with islets and moun- 
tainous shores, had a striking resemblance to Lake George. 
At eight o'clock, we were again on board and ready 
for the boat, which, by appointment, was to take our 
party to the Hawk for a farewell breakfast with the 
Bishop. It is needless to say that we were most Idndly 
and pleasantly entertained. The Bishop was pleased to 
accompany us back to our vessel, and to give us his part- 
ing blessing, on our own more humble deck. Just be- 
fore sailing. Master Boone came off to us in a boat with 
a gift of milk and eggs, and a nice, fat lamb. By ten 
o'clock, both the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes 
were waving on high in a south-west breeze, and we 
glided through the narrows toward the open sea, the 
chasms of the precipices heavily charged with the last 
winter's snow. 

5* 



CHAPTEE XXIV. 

TUE ICEBERG OF T WILL ING ATE. 

Twelve o'clock. The day we celebrate. Three 
cheers ! Now we arc after the iceberg. Upon getting 
near, we find it grounded in fifty fathoms of water, ap- 
parently storm-worn, and much the worse for the terrible 
buffeting of the recent gale. Masses of the huge, glassy 
precipices seem to have been blasted off within the last 
hour, and gone away in a lengthy line of white frag- 
ments upon the mighty stream. We are now bearing 
down upon it, under full sail, intending to pass close 
under it. Our good angels bear us company as we pass. 

What an exc[uisite specimen of nature's handiwork 
it looks to be, in the blaze of noon ! It shines like pol- 
ished silver dripping with dews. The painter is aU ready 
with his colors, having sketched the outlines with lead. 
The water streams down in all directions in little rills and 



THE ICEBERG OF TWILLINGATE. 107 

falls, glistening in the liglit like molten glass. Veins 
of gem-like transparency, blue as saiDj)liirc, obliquely- 
cross the opaque white of the prodigious mass, the pre- 
cious beauty of wliich no language can picture. Frag- 
ments lie upon the slopes, like bowlders, ready to be dis- 
lodged at any moment, and launched into the waves. 
Now we dash across his cool shadow, and take his breath. 
There looks to be the permanency of adamant, while in 
reality all is perishable as a cloud, and charged with 
awful peril. Imagine the impressive grandeur and ter- 
rific character of cliffs, broad and lofty cliffs, at once so 
solid, and yet so liable at any moment to burst asunder 
into countless pieces. We all know the danger, and I 
confess that I feel it painfully, and wish ourselves at a 
safe distance. 

The wind increases, and all is alive on deck. To my 
relief, we have fallen off to leeward beyond all harm. 
But we are on the back track, and meafti to take him 
again, and take the risques also of his terrible, but very 
beautiful presence. Now we run. If he were a hostile 
castle, he would open upon us liis big guns, at this in- 
stant. Bravely and busily the waves beat under the hol- 
low of the long, straight water-line, rushing through the 
low archways with a variety of noises, — roaring, hissing, 
slapping, cracking, lashing the icy vaults, and polishing 



108 THE ICEBERG OF TWILLINGATE. 

and mining away with, a wild, joyous energy. Poor 
Islimael of the sea ! every hand and every force is against 
him. If he move, he dashes a foot against the deep 
down stones. While he reposes, the sun pierces his 
gleaming helmet, and strikes through, the joints of his 
glassy armor. 

In the seams and fissures the shadows are the softest 
blue of the skies, and as plain and palpable as smoke. 
It melts at every j^ore, and streams as if a perpetually 
overflowing fountain were upon the summit, and flashes 
and scintillates like one vast brilliant. Prongs and reefs 
of ice jutting from the body of the berg below, and over 
which we pass, give the water that emerald clearness so 
lovely to the eye, and open to the view something like 
the fanciful sea-green caves. We now lie to, under the 
lee side, fearfully close, it seems to me, when I recollect 
the warning of the Bishop, never, on any account, to ven- 
ture near an iceberg. Its water-line. Under which tbe 
waves disappear in a lengthy, piazza-like cavern, with ex- 
plosive sounds, is certainly a remarkable feature. Occa- 
sional glimpses unfold the polish, the colors^ and the 
graceful winding of sea-sbells. A strong current in con- 
nection with the wind forces us, I am glad to say, to a 
more safe and comfortable distance. The last ten min- 
utes has given us a startling illustration of the dangers 



THE ICEBERG OF TWILLINGATE. 109 

of whicli we have been forewarned : a crack like a field- 
piece was followed by the falling of ice, on the opposite 
side of the berg, attended with a sullen roar. 

We round to, and take the breeze in our faces. The 
ice is up the wind, square before us, and we must after it 
by a tack or two. The stars and stripes yet float aloft, 
and seem to tremble with delight as we sport through 
these splendid hours of Freedom's holiday. The berg 
with its dazzling white^ and dove-colored shadows, — the 
electric breeze, — the dark sea with its draperies of spark- 
Hng foam, north, east, south, out to the pure azure of the 
encircling sky, — the sunshine, that bright spirit and cease- 
less miracle of the firmament, — the white-winged vessel 
boxing the billow, now rolling on black and cloud-like, 
now falling off with the spotless purity of a snow-drift, — 
the battle of the surges and the solid cliffs, all conspire 
to enliven and excite. 

While the painter is busy, overlooked by Mr. Hutch- 
inson, and I' lean over the bow and scribble in my 
note-book, a sailor comes forward and gazes upon the ice- 
berg as if he, too, was looldng at something new. He has 
passed them by, time out of mind, either idly or with dis- 
like, as things to be shunned, and not to be looked back 
at when safely weathered. Now that his attention is 
called, he finds that this useless mass, tumbling about in 



110 THE ICEBERG OF TWILLINGATE. 

the path of mariners, is truly a most wonderful creation. 
Like all the larger structures of nature, these crystalline 
vessels are freighted with God's power and glory, and 
must be reverently and thoughtfully studied, to " see into 
the Hfe of them/' The common clouds, which unnoticed 
drop their shadows upon our dwellings, and spot the land- 
scape, are found to be wonderful by those alone who 
watch them patiently and thoughtfully. " The witchery 
of the soft blue sky did never melt into the poet's heart ; 
he never felt the witchery of the soft blue sky" but from 
silent, loving study. 

Captain Knight backs the sails, and we hold on near 
enough to the ice to see the zone of emerald water, a 
fearfully close proximity. Look up to those massy folds 
and wreaths of icy drapery, all flashing in the sun ! Sec 
that gigantic wing, not unlike the pictured wings of an- 
gels, unfolded from one of the vast shoulders, and spread 
upon the high air. As the wind sweeps over and falls 
upon us, we feel an icy chilliness. Beyond" a very short 
distance, however, we are unable to perceive the smallest 
influence. 

"We are now to the leeward, half a mile or so, and are 
watching the Captain, who has gone with the boat and a 
couple of men to gather ice out of the drift, which 
stretches from the berg in a broken hne for two miles or 



THE ICEBERG OF TWILLINGATE. Ill 

more. Portions of this have fallen within the last hour, 
keeping up a kind of artillery discharge, very agreeable 
to hear at this distance, and quite in harmony with the 
day at home. They have struck the ice, a mile off, and 
the chips sparkle in the sunshine as they ply the axe. 
As they return, we drop down the wind to meet them. 
Here they come with a cart-load of the real arctic alabas- 
ter, the very same, I have no question, that hung an hour 
ago as one of the shining crags of the lofty ice-cliff. And 
now, with all sail spread, and a S2)irited breeze, away to 
the north-west for Cape St. John. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

THE FEEEDOM OP THE SEAS ONCE MOEE.— A BUMPEE TO THE QUEEN 
AND PBESIDENT. 

The waves are crisp with a snowy mane, and the 
rocky shores of Twillingate are draped with splendid 
lights and shadows. While the seams and surfaces of 
the cliffs are strikingly plain in the sunlight, they are 
dark as caverns in the shade. This gives the coast a 
wonderfully broken, wild, and picturesque look. 

Once more the sea " is all before us where to choose." 
The joy of this freedom is utterly inexpressible, although, 
in consideration of the day, we — we Yankees — occasion- 
ally hurra right heartUy. But no words can do justice 
to the delightful emotions of moments such as these. 
" Messmates, hear a brother sailor sing the dangers of the 
sea," runs the old song. None that I have ever heard or 
read express at all the real pleasure of its freedom. The 



THE FREEDOM Oi-' THE SEAS ONCE MOKE. 113 

freedom of the seas ! If any great city council would do 
a man of feeling a noble pleasure, let them vote him that, 
A lonely isle of crystalline brightness, all the way from 
Melville Bay, most likely, gleams in the north-east. 
Pale and solitary, like some marble mausoleum, the ice- 
berg of Twillingate stands off in the southern waters. 
After all, how feeble is man in the presence of these arc- 
tic wonders ! With all his skill, intelligence and power, 
he passes, either on the sunny or the shady side, closely 
at his peril, only in safety at a distance too great to 
satisfy his curiosity, and gazes at their greatness and 
their splendor, and thinks and feels, records his thoughts 
and feelings, draws their figure and paints their com- 
plexion, but may no more lay his hand upon them than 
the Jew of old might lay his hand upon the ark of the 
covenant. He may do it and live, do it twice or thrice, 
and then he may perish for his temerity. There now re- 
poses, amid the currents and billows of the ocean, the 
huge, polar structure, which has been to us an object of 
the liveliest interest and wonder ; its bright foundations 
fifty fathoms in the deep ; an erection suggestive of the 
skill and strength of the Creator ; with a mystery en- 
veloping its story, its conception, birth and growth, its 
native land, the hour of its departure, its strange and 
labyrinthine voyage. While the body of this building- 



114 A BUBIPER TO THE QUEEN AND PEESIDENT. 

of-the-elements sleeps below, and only its gables and 
towers glow and melt in tbe brigbtness of tbese summer 
days, yet is it as dissolvable as the clouds from which it 
originally fell. It is but the clouds condensed and crys- 
tallized. A column of vapof, mainly invisible, per^^etu- 
ally ascends into its native heavens, while the atmos- 
phere, and the warm, briny currents melt and wear, at 
every imaginable point of the vast surface. Pass a few 
sunny weeks, and all will be melted, and, like a snow- 
flake, lost in the immensity of waters. 

Still the flags wave above. We fiU our glasses with 
iceberg-water, and drink with cheers to the Queen and 
President. As the breeze dies away in the long, long 
afternoon, and we roU lazily on the glassy swells, the 
painter and I, the poorest of sailors, lapse into sea-sick- 
ness, and go below. 



CHAPTEE XXVI. 

GULL ISLAND.— THE ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 

Tuesday, Juhj 5. Off Cape St. Jolm, with fog and 
head winds. We are weary of this fruitless beating 
about, and resolve to put into smooth water for the sake 
of relief from sea-sickness. While our Enghsh guests 
seem to enjoy the breakfast, we have gone no further than 
to sip a little tea, take a few turns on deck in the chilly 
morning air, and return to the cabin, where I pencil 
these notes. 

There is a dome-shaped berg before us in the mist, 
but not of sufficient beauty in the dull gray atmosphere 
to attract attention. Exclamations of our friends on 
deck have brought me up to look at the ice as we pass it, 
distant, it may be, five hundred yards. It bears a strange 
resemblance to a balloon lying on its side in a collapsed 



116 THE ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 

condition. It lias recently undergone some heavy dis- 
ruptionSj and rolled so far over as to bring its late water- 
line, a deep and polished fissure, nearly across the top 
of it. 

There is a promise of clear weather. The clouds, to 
our delight, are breaking, and giving us peeps of the sunny 
azure far above. The Cape is in full view, a promontory 
of shaggy precipices, suggestive of all the fiends of Pande- 
monium, rather than the lovely Apostle, whose name has 
been gibbeted on the black and dismal crags. The salt 
of that saintly name cannot save it. Nay, it is better 
fitted to spoil the saint. Cape St. John ! Better, Cape 
" Moloch, Horrid King," or some other demon of those 
that figure in the dark Miltonic scenes. It is terribly 
awful and impressive. Our lamb, poor innocent, seems 
to feel lonely under the frown of a coast so inhospitable 
and savage, and comes bleating around us as if for sym- 
pathy. The wind is cold and bracing, sweeping alike 
the sea and the sky of all fog and clouds, and driving us 
to heavy winter clothing. 

As we bear down toward the Cape, we pass Gull Isle, 
a mere pile of naked rocks delicately wreathed with lace- 
like mists. Imagine the last hundred feet of Corway 
Peak, the very finest of the New Hampshire mountain 
tops, prickmg above the waves, and you will see this 



THE ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 117 

little outpost and breakwater of Cape St. John. All 
things have their uses. Even this bone of the earth, 
picked of all vegetable growth and beauty, and flung into 
the deep, has the marrow of goodness in it to a degree 
that invites a multitude of God's fair creatures to make 
it their estate and dwelling-place. Gulls with cimetar- 
like pinions, cut and slash the air in all directions. 
Pretty little sea-pigeons fly to and fro, flying off with 
whistling wings in straight lines, and flying back, full of 
news, and full of alarm. 

A grand iceberg is before us, remarkable, in this par- 
ticular light, for its pure, white surface. A snow-drift, 
with its icy enamel, after a silver thaw, might be taken 
as a model of its complexion. This is a berg evidently 
of more varied fortunes than any we have yet seen. It is 
crossed and recrossed with old water-lines, every one of 
which is cut at right angles with its own system of lines, 
formed by the perpendicular dripping. It is ploughed 
and fluted and scratched deeply in all possible directions. 
At this very moment a new system of lines is rapidly 
forming by the copiously descending drip, over- streaming 
all those made when the berg had other perpendiculars. 
Any large fall of ice, for example, from the opposite side, 
would bow the berg toward us, sinking the present sea- 
line on this side, and lifting it on the other. In nearly 



118 THE ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 

every case tlie berg, when it rolls, loses its old horizontal 
position, and settles in a new one. Immediately a new 
Lorizon-line, if it may so be called, with its countless ver- 
tical ones, of course, instantly commences forming, to be 
followed by a similar process, at each successive roll of 
the berg, unto the end. There are draperies of white 
sea-shell-like ice, with streaks of shadow in their great 
folds, which rival the softest azure. Indicative of the 
projections of the submarine ice, the light-green water 
extends out in long, radiating points, a kind of eme- 
rald spangle, with its bright central diamond on the pur- 
ple sea. 

It is a wonderfully magnificent sight to see an almost 
black wave roll against an iceberg, and instantly change 
in its entire length, hundreds of feet, into that delicate 
green. Where the swell strikes obliquely, it reaches high, 
and runs along the face, sweeping like a satellite of loveli- 
ness in merry revolutions round its glittering orb. Like 
cumulous clouds, icebergs are perpetually mimicking the 
human face. This fine crystal creature, by a change in 
our position, becomes a gigantic bust of poet or philoso- 
pher, leaning back and gazing with a fixed placidity into 
the skies. In the brilliant noon, portions of it glisten 
like a glassy waterfall. The cold, dead white, the subtle 
greens, the blues, shadows of the softest slate, all contrast 






CVJ 
o ■ 

% 




THE ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 119 

with tlie flashing brightness in a way most exquisite to 
behold. True to all the forms of nature that swell to the 
sublime, an iceberg grows upon the mind astonishingly. 
On the boundless plains of water, of course, it is the 
merest molehill : in itself, it has the lonely grandeur of a 
broad precipice in the mountains. 

Foremost of several bergs, now hovering about the 
Cape, is one of greater magnitude than any we have pre- 
viously met. It is, on this front, a broad and lofty pre- 
cipice, very nearly resembling the finest statue-marble, 
newly broken. It is losing its upper crags, every now 
and then, and vibrating very grandly. At short intervals, 
we hear sharp reports, like those of brass ordnance, fol- 
lowed by the rough, rumbling crash of the descending 
ice, and the dull roar of its final plunge into the ocean. 
After this awful burial of its dead, with such grand 
honors, a splendid regiment of waves retreats from the 
mournful scene, in a series of concentric circles, rivalling 
the finest surf that rolls in upon the sand. It is the very 
flower of the ocean cavalry. Under its fierce and bril- 
liant charge, an ordinary ship's boat would go down, 
almost to a certainty. It is what we have been most 
carefuUy warned to avoid. This fine iceberg presents, I 
fancy, much the same appearance it had in the G-reenland 
waters. Its water-line, which is the only one visible, is 



120 THE ICEBEEGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 

not less than fifteen feet deep, and rises and falls, in 
its ponderous rockings back and fortk, not more tlian 
twenty feet, so vast the bulk below. I have little doubt 
that the Alpine slopes and summits are its primitive 
surface. 



CHAPTEE XXVII. 

THE SPLENDID ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 

We are making a round of calls on all tlie icebergs 

of Cape St. John, painting, sketching, and pencilling as 

we go. Our caUs are cut short for the want of wind, and 

we lie becalmed on the low, broad swells, majestically 

rolling in upon the Cape, only a mile to the south-west. 

Captain Knight is evidently unquiet at this proximity. 

A powerful current is setting rapidly in, carrying us over 

depths too great for our cables, up to the very cliffs. If 

the adventurous mariner, who first sighted this bold and 

forward headland, was bent upon christening it by an 

apostolic name, why did he not call it Cape St. Peter ? 

All in all, it is certainly the finest coast scenery I have 

ever seen ; and Captain Knight assures us it is the very 

finest on the eastern shore of Newfoundland. It is a 

black, jagged wall, often four, and even five hundred feet 




t22 TUE SPLENDID ICEBERGS OF OAPE BT. JOHN. 

in lici^lit;, with u iive-iiiilo front, and tlio deep yea closo 
ill to tho ro(.!lij without a bcacli, and ahnost without a 
foothohl. 'I'his stupendous, natural wharf stretches back 
into the Houth-west toward the main land, widening very 
litdo for twenty miles or more, dividing tho largo expanse 
of White Bay on tlio west from tho larger expanse of 
Notre Danio Bay on iho cast and south, tho fine iEgcan, 
heforo mentioned, with its multitudinous islands, of which 
wo get not tho least notion from any of our popular maps. 
Such is a kind of charcoal sketch of Capo St. John, 
toward which, in spito of all wo can yet do, wo are slowly 
drifting. Unless there he power in our hoat, manned by 
nil tho crow pulling across tho current, with the Captain 
oil tho bow cracking them up with his fine, firm voice, 
I do not SCO why wo arc not in tlio greatest danger of 
drifting ashore. It is possible that there is a breath of 
wind under the cliffs, by which avo might escape round 
into still Avator. AVith all the quiot of the ocean, I see 
the white surf spring up against the precipices. In the 
strongest gales of tho Atlantic, the surges hero must bo 
perfectly terrific, ami equal to any tiling of the kind on 
tho globe. Tho great Baffin current, sweeping past with 
fiH'co and velocity, makes this a point of singular danger. 
To be wrecked hero, with all gentleness, would be pretty 
sure destruction. In a storm, tho chance of escape would 



TIIK ^ilM.KNDIP ICKIIKIUIS OK CAl'K SI'. JOHN. rj;v 

1)0 abouL Llio biuiu', jus in the mpiils of Mia!j;:irii. Al'lui' 
ftU, tlicro is a fiuo oxcitoinoiil. in Mils rudu'r perilous play 
with tlio suWinio ami dcsolalo. Would any boliovo it ? 
1 am actually soa-siclv, ami (hat in llio lull enjoynicut of 
this grandeur of adamant and ico. I lind I am not alone. 
Tho painter with his live colors falls to tlio Kamo level of 
Buflerinj]^ with the man of the dull lead-pencil and the 
noto-book. A slight breeze has relieved us of all jinxicty, 
and all necessity of further elTort to row out of danger. 
Wo are moving perceptibly up the wide current, and 
propose to escape to the north as soon as the wind sliall 
favor. 

Wo have just passed a fragment of some one of the 
surrounding icebergs that has amused us. It bore tho 
rescniblance of a huge polar bear, reposing upon the baso 
of an inverted cone with a twist of a sea-shell, and whirl- 
ing slowly round and round. The ever-attending grocu 
water, with its aerial clearness, enabled ns to see its 
spiral folds and horns as they hung suspended in tho deep. 
Tho bear, a ton-foot mass in tolerable proportion, scorned 
to bo regularly hesct by a pack of hungry littlo swells. 
First, one would take him on the haunch, then whip back 
into the sea over his tail and between his legs. Presently 
a bolder swell would rise and pitch into his back with a 
ferocity that threatened instant destruction. it only 



124 THE SPLENDID ICEBEEGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN, 

washed his satin fleece the whiter. While Bruin was 
turning to look the daring assailant in the face, the rogue 
had pitched himself back into his cave. No sooner that, 
than a very hull-dog of a billow would attack him in the 
face. The serenity with which the impertinent assault 
was borne was complete. It was but a puff of silvery 
dust, powdering his mane with fresher brightness. Noth- 
ing would be left of bull but a little froth of all the 
foam displayed in the fierce onset. He too would turn 
and scud into his hiding-place. Persistent little waves ! 
After a dash singly, all around, upon the common enemy, 
as if by some silent agreement under water, they would 
all rush on, at once, with their loudest roar and shaggiest 
foam, and overwhelm poor bear so completely, that noth- 
ing less might be expected than to behold him broken 
into his four quarters, and floating helplessly asunder. 
Mistaken spectators ! Although, by his momentary roll- 
ing and plunging, he was evidently aroused, yet neither 
Bruin nor his burrow were at all the worse for all the wear 
and washing. The deep fluting, the wrinkled folds and 
cavities, over and through which the green and silvery 
water rushed back into the sea, rivalled the most exqui- 
site sculpture. And nature not only gives her marbles, 
with the finest lines, the most perfect lights and shades, 
she colors them also. She is no monochromist, but poly- 



THE SPLENDID lOEBEliGS OF (JAPE ST. JOHN. 125 

cliroic, imparting such touches of dove-tints, emerald and 
azure, as she bestows upon her gems and her skies. 

We arc bearing up under the big berg us closely as 
we dare. To our delight, what we have been wishing, 
and watching for, is actually taking place : loud explo- 
sions with heavy falls of ice, followed by the cataract-like 
roar, and the high, thin seas, wheeling away beautifully 
crested with sparlding foam. If it is possible, imagine 
the effect upon the beholder : This precipice of ice, with 
tremendous cracking, is falling toward us with a majestic 
and awful motion. Down sinks the long water-line into 
the black deep ; down go the porcelain crags, and galle- 
ries of glassy sculptures, a speechless and awful bap- 
tism. Now it pauses and returns : up rise sculptures 
and crags streaming with the shining, white brine ; up 
comes the great, encircling line, followed by things new 
and strange, crags, niches, balconies and caves ; up, up 
it rises, higher and higher still, crossing the very breast 
of the grand ice, and all bathed with rivulets of gleaming 
foam. Over goes the summit, ridge, pinnacles and all, 
standing off obliquely in the ojiposite air. Now it pauses 
in its upward roU : back it comes again, cracking, crack- 
ing, cracking, '^groaning out harsh thunder" as it comes, 
and threatening to burst, like a mighty bomb, into mil- 
lions of glittering fragments. The spectacle is terrific 



126 THE SPLENDID ICEBERGS OF GATE ST. JOHN. 

and magnificent. Emotion is irrepressible, and peals of 
wild hurra burst forth from all. 

The effect of the sky-line of this berg is marvellously 
beautiful. An overhanging precipice on this side, and 
steep slopes on the other, give a thin and notched ridge, 
with an almost knife-like sharpness, and the transparency 
and tint of sapphire, a miracle of beauty along the heights 
of the dead white ice, over which the sight darts into the 
spotless ultramarine of the heavens. On the right and 
left shoulders of the berg, the slopes fall off" steeply this 
way, having the folds and the strange purity peculiar 
to snow-drifts. One who has dwelt pleasantly upon 
draperies in marble, — upon those lovely swellings and 
depressions, — those sweet surfaces and lines of grace and 
beauty of the human form, perfected in the works of 
sculptors, will appreciate the sentiment of the ices to 
which I point. 

At the risque of being thought over-sentimental and 
extravagant, I will say something more of the great iceberg 
of Cape St. John, now that we are retiring from it, and 
giving it our last look. Of all objects an iceberg is in the 
highest degree multiform in its eifects. Changeable in its 
colors as the streamers of the northern sky, it will also 
pass from one shape to another with singular rapidity. 
As we recede, the upper portions of the solid ice have a 



THE SPLENDID ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 127 

light and aerial effect, a description of which is simply 
impossible. Peaks and spires rise out of the strong and 
apparently unchanging base with the light activity of 
flame. A mighty structure on fire, all in ice ! 

Cape St. John ! — As we slowly ghde away toward the 
north, and gaze back upon its everlasting cliffs, confront- 
ed by these wonderful icebergs, the glorious architecture 
of the polar night, I think of the apostle's vision of per- 
manent and shining walls, " the heavenly Jerusalem," 
"the city which hath foundations, whose builder and 
maker is God." 

" The good south wind " blows at last with strength, 
and we speed on our way over the great ocean, darkly 
shining in all its violet beauty. Pricking above the hori- 
zon, the peak of a berg sparkles in the glowing daylight 

of the west like a silvery star, C has painted with 

great effect, notwithstanding the difficulty of lines and 
touches from the motion of the vessel. If one is curious 
about the troubles of painting on a little coaster, lightly 
ballasted, dashing forward frequently under a press of 
sail, with a short sea, I would recommend him to a good, 
stout swing. "While in the enjoyment of his smooth and 
sickening vibrations, let him spread his pallet, arrange 
his canvas, and paint a pair of colts at their gambols in 
some adjacent field. 



128 THE SPLENDID ICEBERGS OF CAPE ST. JOHN. 

Tlie novelty and grandeur of these Newfoundland 
seas and shores have busied the pencil so completely as to 
exclude much interesting matter, especially such as Cap- 
tain Knight is continually contributing in his conversa- 
tion. As we have been, for some time past, crossing the 
fields of the sealer, and as the Captain himself has a 
large experience in that adventurous business, seals and 
sealing have legitimately a small place, at least, in this 
recital. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII. 

THE SEAL FIELDS.— SEALS AND SEALING.— CAPTAIN KNIGHT'S 
SUIPWKECK. 

The sealers from St. Johns, for example, start upon 
their northern voyage, early in March, falling in with 
both ice and seals very frequently off the Capes of Con- 
ception and Trinity Bays. The ice, a snowy white, lies 
in vast fields upon the ocean, cracked in all ways, and 
broken into cakes or " pans " of all shapes and sizes. At 
one time, it resembles a boundless pavement dappled 
with dark water, into which vessels work their way, and 
upon which the seals travel : at another time, without 
the displacement of a block, this grand pavement of the 
sea rolls with its billows, rising and falling with such 
perfect order, that the men run along the ridges and 
down the hollows of the swells in safety. But this order 

goes into confusion in a storm, presenting in the succeed- 
6* 



130 SEALS AND SEALING. 

ing calm a waste of ruins, masses of ice thrown into a 
thousand forms. In the long, starry nights, or the moon- 
light, or in the magic brilliancy of the aurora-borealis, 
the splendor of the scene, — dark avenues and parks of 
sleeping water, the silent glittering of mimic palaces and 
temples, sparkling minarets and towers, is almost super- 
natural. As will be seen at once, both the beauties and 
the perils incident to the ice, in calm and tempest, enter 
largely into the experience of the sealers. To-night, 
their vessel may repose in a fairy land or fairy sea, of 
which poets and painters may dream without the least 
suspicion that any mortal ever beholds the reality, and 
to-morrow night, it may encounter the double dangers of 
ice and storm. 

Upon the fields just mentioned, the seals come from 
the ocean, in the depth of winter, and bring forth their 
young by thousands. There, while their parents come 
and go, the young things lie on the ice, fattening on their 
mothers' milk with marvellous rapidity, helpless and 
white as lambs, with expressive eyes almost human, and 
with the piteous cries of little children. In March, 
about as soon as the voyagers can reach them, they are of 
suitable age and size for capture, which is effected by a 
blow on the head with a club, a much more compassion- 
ate way of killing these poor lambs of the sea than by the 



CAPTAIN knight's SHIPWRECK. 131 

gun, which is much used in taking the old ones. Occa- 
sionally they are drawn bodily to the vessel, but usually 
skinned on the spot, the fat, two or three inches deep, 
coming ofif from the tough, red carcass with the hide, 
which, with several others is made into a bundle, dragged 
in by a rope, and thrown upon deck to cool. After 
a little, they are packed away as solidly as possible, to 
remain until discharged in port. Five, six, and seven 
thousand skins are frec[uently thus laid down, loading 
the vessel to the water's edge. An accident to which the 
lucky sealer was formerly liable, was the melting of the 
fat into oil from the sliding of the skins, caused by the 
rolling of the ship in stormy weather. To " such an ex- 
tent was this dissolving process sometimes carried, as to 
reduce the cargo to skins and oil, half filling cabin and 
forecastle, driving the crew on deck, rendering the vessel 
unmanageable in rough weather, and requiring it to be 
abandoned. This is now securely guarded against by 
numbers of upright posts, which crib, and hold the cargo 
from shifting. 

Several years ago, Captain Knight, while beset with 
the kind of ice, described as so beautiful in the bright 
nights, encountered, with many others, a terrific gale, to 
this day, a mournful remembrance to many people. If 
I am not mistaken, some eighty sail were wrecked, at the 



I.*i2 (JAl'TAiJS KJSllUllT'B BinrVVKEOlv. 

tinio, ulonp; tlicso iron shores. In i'act, very few that 
were out esuaped. Several crows loft their vessels and fled 
to land over the rolling ice-fields, tho inoro prudent way. 
A forlorn hope was to put to sea, tlio course adoj)ted by 
Captain Knight. By skill and coolness ho slipped from 
tho teeth of destruction, and in tho faco of tho tempest 
escaped into the broad ocean. It was hut an escape, 
just the next thing to a wreck. One single sea, tho 
largest ho over experienced in numerous voyages along 
this dreadful coast, swept his deck, and nearly made a 
wreck of him in a moment, carrying overboard ono man, 
nine boats, every soaling-boat on board, and every thing 
else that could bo wrenclied away. Another gigantic 
roller of tho kind would havo destroyed him. But ho 
triumphed, and returned to St. Johns in time to refit, 
and start again. 

Captain Knight was less fortunate, no later than last 
April, when ho lost a fiuo brig with a costly outfit for a 
seaHng voyage, under tho following circumstances ; Im- 
mersed in tho densest fog, and driven by the gale, ho was 
running down a narrow lane or opening in tho ice, when 
tho shout of breakers ahead, and tlio crash of the bows 
upon a roof, came in tho same moment. Instantly, ovor- 
boanl they sprang, forty men of them, and saw their 
strong and beautiful vessel almost imiuediatoly buried in 



CAPTAIN knight's SHIPWRECK. 133 

tho ocean. There they stood, on the heaving field of ice, 
gazing in mournful silence upon the great, black billows as 
they rolled on, one after another, bursting in thunder on 
tho sunken cliffs, a tremendous display of surf where tho 
trembling spars of the brig had disappeared forever. To 
the west of them were tho precipitous shores of Capo Bo- 
navista, lashed by the surge, and the dizzy roost of wild 
sea-birds. For this, the nearest land, in single file, with 
Captain Knight at their head, they commenced at sunset 
tlicir dreadful, and almost hoj^eless march. All night, 
without refreshment or rest, they went stumbling and 
plunging on their perilous way, now and then sinking 
into the slush between the pans or ice-cakes, and having 
to be drawn out by tlicir companions. But for their 
leader and a few bold spirits, the party would have 
sunk down with fatigue and despair, and perished. At 
daybreak, they were still on the rolling ice-fields, be- 
clouded with fog, and with nothing in prospect but tho 
terrible Cape and its solitary chance of escape. Thirsty, 
fiimislied, and worn down, they toiled on, all the morn- 
ing, all the forenoon, all tho afternoon, more and more 
slowly, and with increasing silence, bewildered and lost 
in tho dreadful cloud travelling along parallel with the 
coast, and passing the Cape, but without knowing it at 
the time. But for some remarkable interposition of 



134 CAPTAIN knight's shipwkeck. 

Divine Providence, the approacHng sunset would be their 
last. Only tlie most determined would continue th.e 
marcli into the next night. The worn-out and hopeless 
ones would drop down singly, or gather into little groups 
on the cold ice, and die. As the Captain looked back on 
them, a drawn-out line of suffering men, now in the hol- 
low of the waves, and then crossing the ridge, the last of 
them scarcely seen in the mist, he prayed that Grod would, 
interpose, and save them. A man who prays in fair 
weather, may trust God in the storm. So thought Cap- 
tain Knight, when he thought of home, and wife and 
children, and the wives and the children of his men, and 
made his supplication. They had shouted until they 
were hoarse, and looked into the endless, gray cloud until 
±hey had no heart for looking any longer. Wonderful to 
tell ! Just before sundown they came to a vessel. A 
few rods to the right or to the left, and they must have 
missed it, and been lost. It was owing to this disaster 
that Captain Knight was at leisure in St. Johns upon our 
arrival, and found it agreeable to undertake, for a few 
weeks, our guidance after the icebergs. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

BELLE ISLE AND THE COAST.— AFTER-DINNER DISCUSSION.— FIRST 
VIEW OF LABRADOR.— ICEBERGS.— THE OCEAN AND THE SUNSET. 

Wednesday, July 6. After a quiet night, with a 
mild and favorable breeze, the morning opens with the 
promise of a bright day. Our little cloud of sail is all up 
in the early sunshine, and moving before the cool soutli 
wind steadily forward down the northern sea. Brilliantly 
as the summer sun looks abroad upon the mighty waters, 
I walk the clean, wet deck, in the heaviest winter cloth- 
ing, and have that pleasant tingling in the veins which 
one feels in a brisk walk on a frosty autumnal morning. 
We are abreast of South Belle Isle, high lands fronting 
the ocean, with huge precipices, the fashion of most of the 
eastern coast of Newfoundland. With all their same- 
ness, their rugged grandeur and the ceaseless battle of 
the waves below make them ever interesting. Imagine 



136 AFTER-DINNER DISCUSSIONS. 

the Palisades of the Hudson, and the steeper parts of the 
Highlands exposed to the open Atlantic, and you will 
have no imperfect picture of these shores. They have no 
great bank of earth and loose rocks heaped up along their 
base, but step at once into the great deep ; so deep that 
the icebergs, several of which are in sight, float close in, 
and seem to dare their very crags. 

Afternoon. We have a pleasant custom of coming 
up, after dinner, and eating nuts and fruits on deck. It 
is one of the merry seasons of the day, when John Bull 
and Jonathan are apt to meet in those pleasant encoun- 
ters which bring up the past, and draw rather largely 
upon the future, of their history. John is always the 
greatest, of course, and ever will be, secula seculorum. 
Jonathan, "considering," is greater than John. To be 
sure he is thinner, and eats his dinner in a minute ; but 
then he has every thing to do, and the longest roads on 
earth to travel, in the shortest time. In fact, he has 
many of the roads to make, and the least help and the 
shortest purse of any fellow in the world that undertakes 
and completes grand things. John's first thousand years 
is behind him ; Jonathan's, before him. One's work is 
done ; the other's begun. John's fine roads were made by 
his forefathers ; Jonathan is the forefather himself, and 
is making roads for his posterity. In fact, Jonathan is a 



AFTER-DINNER DISCUSSIONS. 137 

youth only, and Jolin an old man. When the lad gets 
his growth, he will he everywhere, and the old logy, by 
that time, comparatively nowhere. Jonathan insists that 
he is up earlier in the morning than John, and smarter, 
faster, and more ingenious. He contends that he has 
seen his worst days, and John his very best. The longer 
the diverging lines of the dispute continue, the further they 
get from any end ; and wind up finally with one general 
outburst of rhetoric, distinguished for its noise, in which 
each springs up entirely conscious of a perfect victoiy. 
In the comphcated enjoyment of almonds, figs, and victory, 
we betake ourselves to reading, the pencil and the brush. 
We are coasting along the extreme northern limb of 
Newfoundland, bound with its endless girdle of adamant, 
upon which the white lions of old Neptune are perpetu- 
ally leaping, but which they will never wrench away. 
The snow lies in drifts along the heights, a novel, but 
rather dreary decoration for a summer landscape. Be- 
tween us and the descending sun stands a berg, church- 
like in form. The blue shadows in contrast with the 
pure white, have a deep, cloud-like, and grand appear- 
ance. It is certainly a most superb thing, rising out of 
the blue-black waves, now gleaming in the slant sunlight 
like molten silver. So vast and varied is the scene, at 
this moment, that many pencils and many pens would 



138 FIEST VIEW OF LABRADOR. 

fail to keep pace with the rapid description of the 
mind. 

Directly west, is the Land's End of Newfoundland, 
Cape Quirpon — in the seaman's tongue, Carpoon, which 
wo now shoot past. A few miles to the north, as if it 
might have been split off from the Cape, lies Belle Isle. 
The broad avenue of dark sea, extending westward be- 
tween the cape and the island, opens out into the Strait 
of Belle Isle, and carries the eye to the shore of Labra- 
dor, our first view of that bony and starved hermit of a 
country. In this skeleton sketch, as it shows on paper, 
there is nothing very remarkable ; but with the flesh and 
the apparel of nature upon it, it is more beautiful than 
language can paint to the reader's eye. The entire cast 
is curtained by one smooth cloud, of the hue called the 
ashes-of-roses. FuU against It, an iceberg rises from the 
ocean, after the figure of a thunderhead, and of the color 
of a newly-blown rose of Damascus — a gorgeous spectacle. 
The waters have that dark violet, with a silvery surface, 
lucent like the face of a mirror, and a complexion in the 
deeps reminding one of the soft, dusky hues of a Claude 
Lorraine glass. The painter is busy with his colors, 
and all are silently opening mind and heart to the uni- 
versal beauty. We move on over the lovely sea with a 
quiet gracefulness, in harmony with the visible scene and 



ICEBEEGS. 139 

with our emotions. Wo are looking for unusual splen- 
dors, at the approaching sunset. I close the note-book, 
and give myself entirely to the enjoyment of the lonely 
and still magnificence. 

The book is open to record. The sun on the rugged 
hills of Labrador, a golden dome ; Belle Isle, a rocky, 
blue mass, with a wavy outline, rising from the purple 
main pricked with icebergs, some a pure white, others 
flaming in the resplendent sunset like red-hot metal. 
We are sailing quietly as an eagle on the still air. Our 
English friends are heard singing while they walk the 
deck, and look off upon the lonesome land where their 
home is waiting for them. 

All that we anticipated of the sunset, or the after- 
sunset, Is now present. The ocean with its waves of 
Tyrian dye laced with silver, the tinted bergs, the dark- 
blue inland hills and brown headlands underlie a sky of 
unutterable beauty: The west is all one paradise of 
colors. Surely, nature, if she follows as a mourner on the 
footsteps of the fall, also returns jubilant and glorious to 
the scenes of Eden. Here, between the white light of 
day and the dark of the true evening, shade and bright- 
ness, like Jacob and the angel, now meet and wres- 
tle for the mastery. Close down along the gloomy 
purple of the rugged earth, beam the brightest lemon 



140 THE OCEAN AND THE SUNSET. 

hues, soon deepening into the richest orange, with scat- 
tered tints of new straw, freshly "blown lilacs, young- 
peas, pearl and blue intermingled. Above are the 
royal draperies of the twilight skies. Clouds in silken 
threads and skeins ; broad velvet belts and ample folds 
black as night, but pierced and steeped and edged with 
flaming gold, scarlet and crimson, crimson deep as blood ; 
crimson fleeces, crimson deep as blood ; plumes tinged 
with pink, and tipped with fire, white fire. And all this 
glory lies sleeping on the shore, only on the near shore of 
the great ethereal ocean, in the depths of which are melted 
and poured out ruby, sapphire and emerald, pearl and 
gold, with the living moist blue of human eyes. The 
painter gazes with speechless, loving wonder, and I whis- 
per to myself : This is the pathway home to an*^mmor- 
tality of bliss and beauty. Of all the days in the year, 
this may be the birth-day of the King-of-day, and this 
efl'ulgence an imperial progress through the grand gate of 
the west. How the soul follows on in quiet joy, dreaming 
of lovely ones, waiting at home, and lovely ones departed, 
waiting with Christ ! Here come those wondrous lines 
of Goethe, marching into the memory with glowing 
pomp : 

. . . . " Tho sotting Sun ! IIo bonils and sinks— tho day is over- 
lived. Yonder ho liurrios ojff, and qnickons other life. Oh ! that I 



THE OCEAN AND TlIK f^UNSKT. 141 

luivo no wiiiii; (o lift mo from (ho j;rouiul, to struggle after, forever 
after him I I slioulil see, in everlnsting evening beams, the stilly world 
nt my feet, — every height on fire, — every vale in repose, — the silver 
brook llowing into golden streams. The rugged mountain, -with all 
its dark defiles, would not then break my god-liko course. Already 
the sea, with its heated hays, opens on my enraptured sight. Yet tlio 
god seems at last to sink away. ]hit the new impulse wakes. I hurry 
on to drink his everlasting light, — the day before mo and the night 
behind, — the heavens above, and under me the waves. A glorious 
dream! as it is passing, ho is gone." 

Horo como tlio last touclics of tlio living coloring, 
tinging the purplo waves around tho vessel. Under the 
icebergs hang their palo and spectral images, i)iercing the 
depths with their mimic sj)ires, and giving them a lus- 
trous, aerial appearance. Tho wind is lulling, and we rise 
and fall gracefully on tho rolling plain, " The day is 
fading into the later twilight, and ihe twilight into tho 
solemn darloiess." No, not into darkness ; for in these 
months, the faint llamo flickering all night above the 
white ashes of day from tho west circling around to tho 
north and east, tho moonlight and the starlight and tho 
northern-light, all conspire to make the night, if not 
" more beloved than day," at least very lovely. A gloomy 
duskiness drapes tho cape, beneath tho solitary elilfs of 
wliich lies half entombed a shattered iceberg, a ghostly 
wreck, around whoso dead, white ruins the mad surf 
springs up and flings abroad its ghastly arms. Softly 



142 THE OCEAN AND THE SUNSET. 

comes its sad moaning and blends witli tlie plaintive 
melodies of tlie ocean. Hark ! a sullen roar booms 
across tlie dusky sea — nature's burial service and the 
funeral guns. A tower of tbe old iceberg of the cape bas 
tumbled into the billows. We gather presently into the 
cabin for prayer, and so the first scene closes on the coast 
of Labrador. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE MIDNIGHT LOOK-OUT FOEWAKD.— A STORMY NIGHT.— THE 
COMEDY IN THE CABIN. 

Past Midnight. I have been up and watching for- 
ward for mora than an hour, roused from my berth by the 
cry of ice. A large ship, with a cloud of sail, passed just 
across our head, bound for Old England. "That's a 
happy fellow," says the man at the helm ; "past the 
dangers of the St. Lawrence and the Straits, and fairly 
out to sea." The wind is rising, and promises a rough 
time. " There is something," I said to myself, as I 
leaned, and looked over the bow, " there is something in 
all this, familiar as it is to many, very grand and awful, 
as we rise upon the black seas, and plunge into the dark- 
ness, rushing on our gloomy, strange way. We seem to 
be above the very ' blackness of darkness,' and riding 
upon the bosom of the night. The sounding foam, sweep- 



144 THE MIDNIGHT LOOK-OUT FOEWAED. 

ing forward from beneatli our bows, looks like a cloud of 
supernatural brightness^ its whiteness filled, as it is, with 
the fire and electric scintillations of the sea. One could 
easUy imagine himself sailing on the breeze through the 
night, with sparks of lightning and a cloud at his vessel's 
bow." The wind freshens to a gale nearly, and all hands 
are called on deck. We are rolling in a most uncomfort- 
able manner, and I have retreated to my cabin, and will 
creep back to my berth. 

Thuesday Noon, July 7. A few scrawls of the pen- 
cil will serve to give an outline of our experience for the 
last twelve hours. A dense fog, high wind and a heavy 
swell. As a matter of couree, our little ship has been in 
great commotion, and we, miserably sea-sick, regardless 
of breakfast, absent from the cold, wet deck, and rolled 
up below, dull and speechless in bed. "We have been 
gradually creeping up into the world, of late, sipping a 
little coffee and nibbling at crackers. We are off Cape 
St. Louis, the most eastern land of the continent. The 
few turns on deck have sufficiently electrified the brain 
to enable me to get on thus far with my notes, and to 
venture upon a short description of a cabin-scene, at a 
very late hour last night. 

Three sides of our cabin, a room some ten feet by 
twelve, and barely six feet under the beams, are taken up 



A STORMY NIGHT. 145 

by four roughly-made berths ; one on each, side, and two 
extending crosswise, with a space between them, fitted 
up with shelves, and used for the flour-barrel, and as a 
cupboard. Beneath the berths are trunks, tubs, bags, 
boxes and bundles, most of our choicest stores. From 
the centre, and close upon the steep, obtrusive stairs, 
covered witb a glossy oil-cloth, of a cloudy brown and yel- 
low, our table looks round placidly upon this domestic 
scene, so indicative of refreshment and repose. With 
this little sketch of our sea-apartment, the stage upon 
which was enacted our last night's brief play, I will un- 
dertake its description, promising a brevity tbat rather 
suggests, than paints it. 

After the midnight look-out forward for ice, and the 
retreat to the cabin, I soon joined in the general doze, 
rather suifered than enjoyed. In the uproar above, sharp 
voices and the rusk of footsteps over the deck, occasion- 
ally stamping almost in our very faces, we were too fre- 
quently called back to full consciousness, to' escape away 
into any thing better than the merest snatch, of a dream. 
In my own case, the stomach, as usual, indulged itself in 
taking the measure of those motions, so disastrous to its 
peace and equipose ; those rollings, risings, sinkings, 
divings, flings and swings, in which there is the sense of 
falling, and of vibrations smooth and oily. Where one's 



146 THE COMEDY IN THE CABIN. 

mind's eye is perpetually looking down in upon tlie poor 
remains of his late departed dinner, there is no possibility 
for the outter eye to sink into any true and honest slum- 
ber. The shut lid is a falsehood. It is not sleep. The 
live, wakefal eye is under it, looking up against the 
skinny veil. Occasionally the veil is lifted just to let the 
dark out ; occasionally the dumb blackness falls in upon 
the retina like a stifling dust, and dims it, for a moment, 
to a doze. But the fire of wakefulness soon flashes up 
from the cells of the brain, and throws out the sleepy 
darkness, as the volcanic crater throws out its smoke and 
ashes. 

Through some marine manoeuvre, thought necessary 
by the master spirit on deck, and which could be ex- 
plained ' by a single nautical word, if I only knew what 
the word is, we began to roll and plunge in a manner 
sufficiently violent and frightful to startle from its staid 
quiet almost every movable in the cabin. Out shot 
trunks and boxes — off slid cups and plates with a smash 
— back and forth, in one rough scramble with the luggage, 
trundled the table, followed by the nimble chairs. At 
this rate of going on, our valuables would soon mix in one 
common wreck. Determining to interfere, I sprang into 
the unruly confusion, and succeeded in lighting a candle 
just in time to join in the rough-and-tumble, at the risk 



THE COMEDY IN TPIE CABIN. 147 

of ribs and limbs, and the object of mingled merriment 
and alarm to tlie more prudent spectators. Botswood, 
an experienced voyager, sbouted me back to my berth in- 
stantly, if I would not have my bones broken at the next 
heavy lurch of the vessel. I was beginning to feel the 
force of the counsel, when another roll, almost down upon 
the beam-ends, overturned the butter-tub and a box of 
loaf-sugar, and brought their contents loose upon the jSeld 
of action. They divided themselves between the legs of 
the table and the individual, and so, candle in hand and 
adorned in modest white, he sat flat down upon the floor 
among them, at once their companion in trouble and 
their protector. The marble-white sugar and the yellow 
butter, our luxuries and indispensable necessaries, there 
they were, on the common floor, and disposed for once to 
join in a low frolic with plebeian boots and shoes and 
scullion trumpery. 'With an earnest resolve to prevent 
all improprieties of the kind, one hand grasped, knuckle 
deep, the golden mellow mass, of the size of a good Yan- 
kee pumpkin, and held on, while the other was busy in 
restoring, by the rapid handful, the sugar to the safety of 
its box. The candle, in the mean time, encouraged by 
the peals of laughter in the galleries, slid back and forth 
in the most trifling manner possible. When we tipped 
one way, then I sat on a steep hill- side, looking down to- 



148 THE COMEDY IN THE CABIN, 

ward the painter, roaring in his happy valley : away slid 
the candle in her tin slippers, and away the barefooted 
butter wanted to roll after, encouraged to indulge in the 
foolish caper by a saucy trunk jumping down from be- 
hind. When we tipped the other way, then I sat on the 
same hill-side, legs up, looking up, an unsatisfactory 
position : back slid the candle, followed by a charge of 
sharp-pointed baggage, and off started the butter with 
the best intentions toward the tub, waiting prostrate and 
with open arms, Notwithstanding the repetition and 
sameness of this performance, the beholders applauded 
with the same heartiness, as if each change back and forth 
was a novel and original exhibition. What heightened 
the effect of the scene, and gave it a suspicion of the 
tragic, was a keg of gunpowder, which evinced, by several 
demonstrations of discontent in the dark corner where it 
tumbled about, a disposition to come out and join the 
candle. By a hapjiy lull, not unusual in the very midst 
of these cabin confusions during a brush at sea, the pow- 
der did not enter, and I was enabled to pitch the butter 
into the tub, and finally myself, after some few prelimi- 
naries with a towel, into my berth, where, in the course 
of the small remnant of the night, I fell into some broken 
slumbers. 



CHAPTEE XXXI. 

THE CAPE AND BAY OF ST. LOUIS.-THE ICEBEEG.-CATJBOO ISLAND. 
—BATTLE UAEBOK AND ISLAND.-TUE ANCUOKAGE.— TUE MIS- 
8I0NAEIES. 

Five o'clock, P. M. What a pleasing contrast ! 
Wo have heen tossing nearly all day upon a rough, in- 
clement ocean, and are now on the sunny, smooth waters 
of the bay, gliding westward, with Cape St. Louis close 
upon our right. We have sailed from winter into sum- 
mer, almost as suddenly as we come out of the fog, at 
times— burstmg out of it into the clear air, as an eagle 
breaks out of a cloud. It is fairly a luxury to bask in 
this delicious sunshine, and smell the mingled perfume of 
flowers and the musky spruce. Mr. Hutchinson is filled 
with delight to find himself once more on this beautiful 
bay. The rocky hill-country along the western shores, 
nine or ten miles distant, is not the mainland, lie tells 



150 THE ICEBEEG. 

US, but islands, separated from the mainland, and from 
each other, by narrow waters, occasionally expanding into 
lakes of great depth, and extending more than forty miles 
from the sea. Were these savage hills and cliffs beauti- 
fied with verdure, and sprinkled with villages and dwell- 
ings, this would class among the finest bays of the world. 
Across it to the south, some seven miles, and partly out 
to sea, lies a cluster of pictufesc[ue islands, where is Bat- 
tle Harbor, the home of the missionaries, and the prin- 
cipal port on the lengthy coast of Labrador. 

A fine iceberg, of the fashion of a sea-shell, broken 
open to the afternoon sun, and unfolding great beauty, 
lies in the middle of the bay. We are sailing past it, on 
our passage to the harbor, just near enough for a good 
view. It gleams in the warm sun like highly-burnished 
steel, changing, as we pass it, into many complexions — 
changeable silks and the rarest china. The suj)erlatives 
are the words that one involuntarily calls to his aid in 
the presence of an iceberg. From this bright creation 
floating in the purple water, I look up to the bright 
clouds floating in the blue air, and easily discover like- 
nesses in their features, ways and colors. 

The coast of Labrador is the edge of a vast solitude 
of rocky hills, split and blasted by the frosts, and beaten 
by the *waves of the Atlantic, for unknown ages. Every 



CARIBOO ISLAND. 151 

form into which rocks can be washed and broken, is visible 
along its almost interminable shores. A grand headland, 
yellow, brown and black, in its horrid nakedness, is ever 
in sight, one to the north of you, one to the south. Here 
and there upon them are stripes and patches of pale 
green— mosses, lean grasses, and dwarf shrubbery. Oc- 
casionally, miles of precipice front the sea, in which the 
fancy may roughly shape all the structures of human art, 
castles, palaces and temples. Imagine an entire side of 
Broadway piled up sohdly, one, two, three hundred feet in 
height, often more, and exposed to the charge of the great 
Atlantic rollers, rushing into the churches, halls, and 
spacious buildings, thundering through the doorways, 
dashing in at the windows, sweeping up the lofty fronts, 
twisting the very cornices with snowy spray, falling back 
in bright green scrolls and cascades of silvery foam. And 
yet, all this imagined, can never reach the sentiment jof 
these precipices. 

More frequent, though, than headlands and perpen- 
dicular sea-fronts are the sea-slopes, often bald, tame, and 
wearisome to the eye, now and then the perfection of all 
that is picturesque and rough, a precipice gone to pieces, 
its softer portions dissolved down to its roots, its flinty 
bones left standing, a savage scene that scares away all 
thoughts of order and design in nature. If I am not 



152 OAUIBOO ISLAND. 

juiBLukon, Llioro Jiro limes when a slo\)c o( iJio kiiulj a milo 
1)1' iiioro in length, mul in places some hundreds of feet in 
breadth iVoni the tide uy) to the highest lino of ^Yashing, 
JH one of the niot^t toriibly hoautiful ol' oooau t^ights. In 
nil oilstorly gale, the billows roll \l\^ out of the level of llio 
oeean, and >vreek themselves npon ilieso crags, rushmg 
back through gulfs und chasms in a way at onco awfully 
brilliant jvud I err! fie. 

'IMvis is (ho rosy time of Labrador. The blue interior 
hills, and Iho slonv valt^s tliat wind up among them IVoni 
the sea, iiave a. summer-liko and ]deasant air. I find 
myself poeidin;!; Ihese regions, and dotting their hills, 
vjilleys, and wild sliores with human habitations. A 
second tln)nghl. and a. n\ouinfnl one it is, tells mo that 
iu> men toil in (he lii^Kls away Iheve ; no women keej> the 
house otf theu^ ; there no ehildreu play by the brooks, or 
shout around the eeuntry sehool-liouse : no bees oomo 
home to llu* hive ; no smoke enrls fron\ tlie larm-houso 
i'hininev ; no orehard blooms; no bleating sheep lleck 
the mountain-sides wit Iv whiteness; and uo heifer lows 
in the t\vili!\ht. There is nobody Ihere ; there never was 
but a. miserable ai\d seattered few, und there never will 
be. It is a u'l'eat. and lerrihle wilderness of a thousand 
miles, autl lonesome lo (he very wild animals and birds. 
Left to (ho still visitations of (he light fixnn the sttu, 



BATTLE lIARBOll AND ISLAND. 153 

moon, aiul stars, and llio auroral liros, it is only lit to 
look upon, and tlion Lo given over to its primeval soli- 
tariness. But for the living things of its waters, the cod, 
tho salmon and the seal, whicli bring thousands of ad- 
venturous fishermen and traders to its hleak shores, Lab- 
rador would be as desolate as Greenland. 

Wo are now entering Battle Harbor, a most romantic 
nook of water, or Strait rather, between the islands form- 
ing the south side of tho bay St. Louis. Cariboo Ishind 
fronts to tho north on tho bay, five or six miles, I shtnild 
guess, and is a rugged mountain-pile of dark gray rock, 
rounded in its upper masses, and slashed along its shores 
with abrupt cluisms. It drops short off, at its eastern 
extremity, several hundred feet, into a narrow gulf of 
deep water. This is Battle Harbor. The billowy pile of 
igneous rock, perhaps two hundred and fifty feet high, 
lying between this quiet water and tho broad Atlantic, is 
Battlo Island, and tho site of tho town. We pass a 
couple of wild islets, lying seaward, as we glide gently 
along toward our anchorage. There is little to bo seen 
but hard, iron-bound bay, and yet wo aro all out, gazing 
abroad with silent curiosity, as if wo were entering tho 
Golden Horn. Up runs tho Union Jack, and flings its 
ancient crosses to tho sun and breeze, and tho fishermen 

look down upon us from their rude dwellings perched 

7* 



154 THE MISSIONARIES. 

among the crags, and wonder who, and from whence we 
are. For the moment, nothing seems to be going on but 
standing still and looking, men, women, and children. 
And now they will look and wonder still more : up run 
the Stars and Stripes, higher up than all, and overfloat 
the flag of England, and salute the sun and cliffs of Lab- 
rador. The missionary waves his handkerchief — waves 
his hat — calls pleasantly to a group upon the nearest 
shore. They look, and hearken, in the stillness of uncer- 
tainty. Instantly there is a movement of recognition. 
The people know it is their pastor. The intelligence has 
caught, and runs from house to house. Down drop the 
sails, rattling down the masts ; the anchor plunges, and 
the cable runs, runs rattling and ringing from its coil. 
Bound the vessel swings in line with the breeze, and 
comes to its repose. We congratulate the missionary on 
his safe return, while he points us feelingly to the little 
church and parsonage, just above us on the mossy hill- 
side, and bids us welcome as long as we shall find it 
agreeable to remain. With light and thankful hearts, 
and pleasant anticipations, we prepare to go ashore, and 
take our first run upon the hills. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

BATTLE ISLAND AND ITS SCENERY. 

We sit down upon the summit of Battle Island, after 
a zigzag scramble up its craggy side, and talk and sketch, 
and scribble, as we rest and look upon the blue, barren 
sea, and the brown and more barren continent, with its 
mountains of desert rock. With all this desolateness, 
the approaching sunset and the warm skies, the stern 
headlands, the white icebergs and bleak islands, and the 
bay with its rays and points of water, like a vast spangle 
on the savage landscape, all compose a picture of singular 
novelty and grandeur ; at the present moment, wonder- 
fully heightened in beauty and spirit by a distant shower, 
itself a spectacle of brilliancy and darkness sweeping up 
from the north. Mr. Hutchinson here joins us, looking 
all the pleasure that he feels, and points out what is visi- 



156 BATTLE ISLAND AND ITS SCENERY. 

ble of tlie lengthy^ but narrow field of Hs religious 
labors. The harbor, with its vessels and various build- 
ings, lies quite below. One could very nearly throw a 
stone over the little church spire, and shoot a rifle ball 
into the cliffs opposite. The air is spiced with the most 
delicate odors, which invites us to a short ramble in 
search of flowers, after which we descend to the parson- 
age for tea. 

I have stolen out upon the small front piazza 
with a chair, to enjoy the warm sunshine and the 
sights of a Labrador village. The parsonage, which has 
been closed for more than a year past, has been cleaned 
and put in order by some kind Esquimaux parishioners, 

and looks neat and comfortable. H has taken us all 

through, from room to room — to the kitchen, pantry, bed- 
rooms, parlor, which serves also for dining-room, library 
and study, to the school-room up stairs, which is used at 
times as a chapel. As we passed the house clock, the 
pointer still upon the hour where it stopped more than 
eighteen months ago, the painter wound it up, and gave it 
a fresh start and the true time, which it began to measure 
by loud and cheerful ticks, as if conscious that life and 
spirit had returned again to the vacant dwelling. On 
the shelf, over the fireplace, lay a prayer-book, the gift 
of Wordsworth to his nephew, with an affectionate in- 



BATTLE ISLAND AND ITS SCENERY. 157 

scrip tioa on a fly-leaf, in Lis own handwriting, wWle 
near by stood a couple of small pictures of the poet and 
his wife. 

As some fishermen are now drawing in their capelin 
seine, we are going to run down and see the sight. And 
quite a pretty sight it was. Not less than a barrel or 
two were inclosed, which they dipped with a small scoop- 
net into their boat, where they lay for a moment, flutter- 
ing like so many little birds of gaudy plumage under the 
fowler's net. The males and females of these delicate 
fishes, are called here, very comically, cocks and hens. As 
our boat, just then, came across from the vessel, the 
fishers gave us a mess for breakfast, all of half a bushel, 
which we carried over at once. At the sight of several 
fine salmon, on the fishing-flake close by, fresh from the 
net, the poor little capelin sank into immediate contempt. 
We must have a salmon or two. It was a question 
whether we could not eat several. It resulted in the 
purchase of one of sixteen pounds, at the cost of a dollar. 
We were pulled back immediately in order to sup with 
Mr. Hutchinson, and spend the remainder of the long, 
light evening in running over Battle Island. I shall not 
yield to the temptation to dwell upon the brilliant sunset 
which we saw from the summit rocks. Its glories were 
reflected in the bay, and shed upon the grim wilderness, 



158 BATTLE ISLAND AND ITS SCENERY. 

dissolving all its gloomy ruggedness into softest beauty. 
No language can depict the still and solemn splendor of 
the icebergs, reposing upon the burnished waters. Tem- 
ples and mausoleums of dazzling white, warming into 
tints of pink, or deepening on their shaded side into the 
sweetest azure, seemed to be standing upon a mighty 
mirror with their images below. I thought of that stand- 
ing on the sea of glass, in the glorious visions of St. 
John, and was filled with emotions of wonder and admi- 
ration. The words of the psalmist could hardly fail to 
be remembered : " These men see the works of the Lord, 
and his wonders in the deep." 

One would think that all is couleur de rose in these 
lands beyond the reach of fashionable summer tourists. 
Let him remember that nature here blooms, beautifies, 
and bears .for the entire year, in a few short weeks. We 
are in the very flush of that transient and charming time. 
Believe me, when I speak of the plants and flowers, 
shrubbery and mosses. At this moment, the rocky isle, 
bombarded by the ocean, and flayed by the sword of the 
blast for months in the year, is a little paradise of beauty. 
There are fields of mossy carpet that sinks beneath the 
foot, with beds of such delicate flowers as one seldom 
sees. 

There is a refined delicacy in the odor, which the 



BATTLli ISLAND AND ITS SCENEltY. 159 

ordiuary flora of warmer climes seldom has. Some raro 
exotic, reared with cost, and pampered by all the ap- 
pliances of art, may suggest the subtle S2)irit of these 
tiny blossoms. It steals upon the sense of smell with the 
indescribable tenderness of the music of the a3olian harp 
upon the ear. As I enjoy it, I know that I cannot paint 
it to the reader, and that I shall probably never " look 
upon its like again." It is very likely that the cool and 
very pure air, a refinement of our common atmosphere, 
has much to do with it. 

In our stroll, we found banks of snow still sleeping in 
the fissures above the showering of the surf, and peeping 
out from beneath their edges were clusters of pretty flowers. 
As wo returned in the twilight, upon the mournful still- 
ness of which broke the voice of the surge, I lingered 
upon the clifi's to listen to the wood-thrush, the same 
most plaintive and sweet bird that sings in the Catskill 
mountain woods, at dusk and in the early morning. The 
pathos of its wild melody stole in upon the heart, waking 
" thoughts too deep for tears," and calUng up a throng of 
tender memories of Cole and others, with whom the 
songster, the hour, and mountain scenery are forever 
associated. Startled by the voices of my companions, 
one a nephew of the famous poet, and the other a 
pupil of the painter scarcely less renowned, I hastened 



160 BATTLE ISLAND AND ITS SCENERY. 

to join them at the humble parsonage below the cliffs, 
when we went across to the vessel, and united, for the 
last time in the cabin, in those pleasant devotions which 
we had enjoyed, morning and evening, since our depar- 
ture from St. Johns. 



CHAPTEE XXXIII. 

MOSSES, ODOES AND FLOWEKS. — A DI N NE E-P AKT Y. 

Friday, July 8, 1859. A bright, cool morning. 
After breakfast at the parsonage, we went rambling again 
up and down the moss-covered fields of Battle Island, 
smelling the fine perfume, gathering flowers, and counting 
the icebergs. There are more than forty in the neighbor- 
hood, and some of them grand and imposing at a distance. 
Have you thought, as I did, that there are no flowers, or 
next to none, in Labrador ? You might as well have 
thought that all, or nearly all the flowers were in Florida. 
Along the brook-banks under the CatskiUs — to me about 
the loveliest banks on earth, in the late spring and early- 
summer days — I have never seen such fairy loveliness as 
I find here upon this bleak islet, where nature seems to 



162 MOSSES^ ODOKS AND PLOWEES. 

have been playing at Switzerland. Green and yellow 
mosses, ankle-deep and spotted with blood-red stains, car- 
pet the crags and little vales and cradle-like hollows. 
Wonderful to behold ! flowers pink and white, yellow, 
red and blue, are countless as dew-drops, and breathe out 
upon the pure air that odor, so spirit-like. Such surely 
was the perfume of Eden around the footsteps of the 
Lord, walking among the trees of the garden in the cool 
of the day. What grounds these, for such souls as write, 
" The moss supplicateth for the poet," and the closing 
lines of the " Ode, Intimations of Immortality from recol- 
lections of early Childhood." The Painter, passionately 
in love with the flowers of the tropics, lay down and 
rolled upon these soft, sweet beds of beauty with delight. 
Little gorges and chasms, overhung with miniature preci- 
pices, wind gracefully from the summits down to meet 
the waves, and are filled, where the sun can warm them, 
with all bloom and sweetness, a kind- of wild greenhouse. 
We run up them, and we run down them, fall upon the 
cushioned stones, tumble upon their banks of softness as 
children tumble upon deep feather-beds, and dive into 
the yielding cradles embrddered with silken blossoms, 
WiUows with a silvery down upon the leaves, willow-trees 
no larger than fresh lettuce, and the mountain laurel of 
the size of knitting-needles, with pink flowers to corre- 



A DINNER PARTY. 163 

spond, cluster here and there in patches of a breadth to 
suit a sleeping child. 

After our ramble, we returned on board, arranged the 
cabin, now become quite roomy from the departure of our 
friends, and prepared for dinner, to which a small com- 
pany is invited. Our cook, a young Sandy, excelling in 
good nature, but failing in all the essentials of his art, 
was suspended, for the time, from the exercise of all duties 
about the caboose, except those of the mere lackey, and 
two more important personages self-inducted into his 
place. Some pounds of fresh salmon bagged in linen, a 
measure of peeled potatoes, a pudding of rice well shotted 
with raisins, one after another, found their way to the 
oven and the boilers ; from which, in due time and order, 
they emerged in a satisfactory condition, and, with appro- 
priate sauce and gravy, descended in savory procession to 
the cabin, to which they were unexpectedly welcomed by 
a whole dress circle of fashionable dishes seated in the 
surrounding berths, jelly-cake, sponge-cake, raspberry- 
jam, nuts, figs, almonds and raisins, and a corpulent 
pitcher, sweating in his naked white, filled with iceberg 
wat^. It is not necessary to dwell upon the fact, that 
the cooks subsided into the more quiet character of hosts, 
and made themselves, and endeavored to make their 
guests, merry at their own expense. Whether the Queen 



104 A DINMKU TAKTY. 

of England, or ilio rroBidcnt of tlio United States will bo 
pleased, it never oceuiTod to us at the time, wlien, with- 
out thinking of cither, we drank to their health in the 
transparent vintage of Greenland. 



OllAPTEU XXXIV. 

OUK BOAT FOR TIIK irKT!KU(JS.— AFTKU THE ALPINE RERO.-STUDY 
OF ITS WKSTKKN FACE. 

After dinner. Mr. Ilutcbinson has placed at our ser- 
vice liis parish vessel, at once a schooner and a row-boat, 
of wliich Captain Knight, of course, is master, and our 
men the sailors. Wo are all ready, waiting its arrival 
alongside, in order for our first excursion after icebergs, 
equipped entirely to our mind. 

An hour's sail has brought us off into the broad wa- 
ters, south of Battle Harbor, close to a berg selected from 
the heights this morning. Wo drop sails, and row rapidly 
around it, for the best point of observation in tho present 
light. Tho intention is to study tho ices of these waters, 
at aU points, and in all lights, with great care. From 
tills, tlic western side, now glittering in the face of tho 
sun, at six o'clock, it is alpino in its form, with ono 
crowning jioak, RUjiportcd by ]iiiinaclos and bnttrossos, 



166 AFTER THE ALPINE BERG. 

with intervening gulfs and hollows, each with its torrent 
hissing along down in white haste over glassy cliffs and in 
alabaster channels, until it comes spouting into the sea 
from an overhanging precipice, varying from six, to twenty 
feet in height. Between the upper edge of this ice-coast 
and the great steeps of the berg, lies a broad slope, smooth 
as ivory, a paradise for the boys of a village school. We 
are actually tempted to land at a low place, and have a 
run. Without skates, or some arming of the boots, how- 
ever, we guess it would bo rather perilous sport ; in short, 
simply impossible. Wo content ourselves with catching 
a panfull of water, fresh from the great Humboldt gla- 
cier, quite likely, and cold and pure it is. While we are 
busy at the fountain, we amuse ourselves with looking 
down through the clear, green water — right under us, 
clear almost as air — at the roots and prongs of the moun- 
tain mass. They shoot out into the dark sea below far 
beyond our boat, not a pleasing vision to dwell upon, when 
we reflect, that these very prongs and spurs only wait to 
take their turn in the sunshine, under the aspect of up- 
right towers. A heavy fall of ice, which may happen in 
a minute, on the opposite side of the berg, instantly 
gives the preponderance to this, wlicn over this way 
slowly rolls the alpine peak, down sinks all this precipice, 
juid nft(M- it, all tho planting field above ; then on rushes 



AFTER THE ALPINE BERG. 1G7 

the sea in curling Weaves, and wo arc swept on with them. 
Before we can get Lack, and get away to a safe distance, 
by the force of mere saUor power, back rolls the berg, up 
rises the broad slope, followed quickly by the precipices 
rising up, up, and up into lofty cliffs, with a foreground, 
a new revelation of ice ; in a word, the prongs and 
spurs now below us in the transparent deep. In all 
this play of the iceberg and the sea, what will be our 
part ? And who knows whether the moment is not now 
close upon us for this sparlding planet of the main to 
burst asunder, a common process by which the mother 
berg throws off her little ones, rather, resolves herself 
entirely into a shoal of small icebergs ? Should that mo- 
ment really come while we arc in this fearful proximity, 
you need not ask any questions about us, except those 
which you yourself can answer. There are the dead in 
these very waters, I believe, whose last earthly experience 
was among the final thunders of these ices. 

I am struck with the rapid rate at which the bergs 
are perishing. They are dissolving at every point and 
pore, both in the air and in the sea. One sheet of water, 
although no thicker than a linen sheet, covers the entire 
alp. It trickles from every height, yonder glimmering 
like a distant window in the sunset, here cutting into the 
glassy surface and working out a kind of jewelry, which 



1{)S M'liOY OV ri'S WKSTKKN KAOK. 

sparkles with points oi' omrniKl niul ruby. It nihis iVoiu 
ovoH uiul piblos, coviucHvs iuul balrouios, iiiul ispouts iVom 
gutters. All nnnmd, thoro is ilio pattoriti;;' oi' a showor 
on till" son, aiul tlio shar{\ motallio rinpjiug of ^roat drops, 
similar to what is hcarJ arouiul a. poiul in tlu> still avoihIs, 
wluMi (ho ilow-ilrops tall iVom (ho ovorliaiigiug boughs. 
r>olo\v, (ho cxirrents, now pouotrated witli tlio suininor 
\Yannthj are washing it away. Around the surtaeo-liuo, the 
ever-busy waves avo ]H>]islung the uewly-brolvon corners, 
and cutting lutder, and mining tboir way in, with deceitful 
rapidity. Unceasingly theyboix> and drill, without holi- 
day (u- s<abbath, or rest at night, as the perpetual thun- 
dei-s of (heir blasting testify. Thus their ruin is hourly 
hastening to a oousnnunation, and (lie thingor oi' ny- 
proaohing them made more and nuno inu\unon(. UMie 
iceberg in winter, in the Arotie regimis, ami even here, is 
a different affair. In the cold, they are tolerably safe and 
sound. r>ut now, in these coraparatively tepid seas, and 
in this warm atmosphere, lone wanderer, it finds no 
merey. Motionless as this and several bergs ap}H\ir, they 
are all slowly moving in towaixl the Strtiit of Belle Isle, 
borne forwanl by the great Initlin current, a sti'cara of 
which bends aroimd Capo St. Ijouis and these adjacent 
isles, and sets along tho shoiv of Labrador into the Cvidf 
"of St. Tiawrenee 



CTTArTF/Il XXXV. 

TirW AM'INK nKI!(!. -STIM)IKS OP ITR POUTIIEUN I'MJONT.-FlMdllTKUh 
KXI'KOHION AND I'Wl.l. OK lOIO. HTUDIKH Ol-' 'IMIM WKSTKKN HUH';. 
— OUK I'LAY Wll'll 'I'lIK MOOSI", lloiiNS. 'I'llM S1'I-I:N Doi: ol" 'rilM 
RF.Un IN Till'; HllNSK'l'. 

Wk lu-o now lying imtler o:u-h, riding quietly on Mio 
swollw, cliHtiuil;, Hiiy, ii ImndriHl yiirclH Hoiiili of llio berg, 
\vlii(!li liiiH )i visiblo, porpondioulur (Voiil, of live; liiindrcd, 
by oiu! hiiiidrod and fifty foot or iiioro dcviilion. I(, ni- 
scmblcs a procipioo of nowly- broken jiorcchiin, wel, and 
dripping, its vast laco of dead white tinged with green, 
here and there, from the reflection of the green watci- at 
its baso. Wo aro in its shadow, whieh rcacheH oil' on (ho 
sunny sea, a long, dark track. The outline of the hcM-g is 
one edge of dazzling brightnoHS, a kind of iirc^iilur, {low- 
ing frame, gilt witli snnliglit, which eonicH ])onring ov(m- 
ill full tide from Ix^liind. VVliorci the ieo hIiooIh n\\ inio 

thin spoar-pointH, or runs alony; a Hcnii-lrunspaicnl, bliulo, 
8 



170 STUDIES OF ITS SOUTIIKIIN FKONT. 

tlio liglit shines through, and gives the tint of flame, with 
a greenish hand below, and lovr^er still, a soft hlue, pres- 
ently lost in the broad white. In these ices, never think 
of any such as you sec at home, from Kockland and Cats- 
kill. Frozen under enormous pressure^ and frozen to dry 
and flinty hardness, it lias all the sparkle of minutest 
crystallization, and resembles, as I have said already, 
freshly broken statue-marble or porcelain, as you see it on 
the edge newly snapped. The surface of this ice is in 
itself a study singularly complex and subtle. How the 
mere passer-by, at a distance, is going to know any thing 
of value to a jiaintcr, I cannot tell. The flict is, he knows 
just nothing at all. A portrait-painter might as well 
pretend to have a knowledge of flesh, from seeing people 
at a distance. I think if I could study just here, for 
hours, I should bo able to speak more correctly. Of 
course, the Painter, whoso eye is trained to look into tlio 
texture of surfaces, sees all more readily. I am looking 
up to rough crags, and enormous bulges, where the recent 
fracture would seem to have an almost painful sharpness 
to the touch. Where the surfaces have been for a time 
exposed to the weather, they have the flesh-finish of a 
statue. Along the lower portion, where you see the glass- 
ing effects of the waves, there it resembles the rarest 
Sevres vase, or oven pearl itself, so exquisitely fine is 



STUDIES OF ITS SOUTHERN FRONT. I7l 

the polish. It is almost mirror-like. You perceive the 
dim images of passing objects, shadowy ships and shores. 
Where the light pours over it in its strength, it shines 
like burnished steel in the sunshine. 

Under the manifold effects of atmosphere, light and 
shade, none can imagine, through the medium of mere 
description, the grandeur and glory of these moving Alps 
of ice. Here now, is one simple feature, whicli our dan- 
gerous proximity alone enables us to view, the wondrous 
beauty of which — beauty to the feelings as well as to the 
eye — I cannot find any language to paint. I may talk 
of it through a hundred periods, and yet you will never 
feel and see a tithe of what you would in a moment, were 
you here upon the spot. The berg, in the deep shadow 
of which we now sit painting and writing, as I have inti- 
mated, is in form a mountain pinnacle, split down from 
the summit square, and the split side toward our boat. 
What has became of the lost half, the Great Builder of 
icebergs only knows. We are under the cliffs, from which 
that unknown part burst off and fell away. It is an 
awful x)recipice, with all tho features of precipices, sucli 
as are seen about capes, headlands and ocean shores. 
Here it swells out, there it sinks in, masses have sliddcn 
out, and left square-headed doorways opening into tho 
solid porcelain, ridges run off, and hollows run in and 



172 EXPLOSION AND FALL OF ICE. 

around. In these very hollows and depressions is the 
one feature of which I am speaking. And, after all, what 
is it ? It is simply shadow. Is that all ? That is 
all : only shadow. All the grand fa9ade is one shadow, 
with a rim of splendor like liq[uid gold leaf or yellow 
flame, but in those depressions is a deeper shadow. 
Shadow under shadow, dove-colored and blue. Thus 
there seems to be drifting about, in the hollow lurking- 
places of the dead "white, a colored atmosphere, the 
warmth, softness, and delicate beauty of which no mind 
can think of words to express. So subtle is it and evan- 
escent, that recollection cannot recall it when once gone, 
but by the help of the heart and the feelings, where the 
spirit of beauty last dies away. You can feel it, after you 
have forgotten what its complexion precisely is, and from 
that emotion you may come to remember it. You would 
remember nothing more beautiful. 

Any doubt that I may have entertained about the 
danger of lying under the shadow of this great ice-rock is 
now wholly dispelled. We have just witnessed what was, 
for the moment, a perfect cataract of ice, with all its mo- 
tion, and many times its noise. Quick as lightning and 
loud as thunder, when bolt and thunder come at the 
same instant, there was one terrific crack, a sharp and 
silvery ringing blow upon the atmosphere, which I shall 




o 

EH 

O 



i — I 







EXPLOSION AND FALL OF ICE. 173 

never forget, nor ever be able to describe. It shook mc 
tlirough, and struck the very heart. The only response on 
my part, and I was not alone in the fright, was a convul- 
sive spring to the feet, and a shout to the oarsmen, of 
fierce command, " Row back ! row back ! " The specta- 
cle was nearly as startling as the explosion. At once, the 
upper face of the berg burst out upon the air, as if it had 
been blasted, and swept down across the great chflf, a huge 
cataract of green and snowy fragments, with a wild, 
crashing roar, followed by the heavy, sullen thunder of 
the plunge into the ocean, and the rolling away of tho 
high-crested seas, and the rocking of the mighty mass 
back and forth, in the eifort to regain its equilibrium. 
I dreaded the encounter ; but our whale-boat was quite 
at home, and breasted the lofty swells most gracefully. 
But how fearfully impressive is all this ! I recall tho 
warning of the Bishop of Newfoundland, and recollect the 
conversation of the Eev. Mr. "Wood, the rector of St. 
Thomas'. 

We now pass round to the other side of the berg, and 
take a position between it and the sun. Upon our first 
circumnavigation, we found this edge of the ice, in its 
lowest part, about six feet above the sea, with a caver- 
nous hollow running all round, into which the waves were 
playing with their strange and many sounds. Now, from 



IV-I BTllhllOH Oil' 'I'lli; Wiai'PMKN HIDIO. 

Mi(^ ii'ci'iil. loMM dl" it't^ oil llio oppoMil.o lu'iL;;h(,M, idl iJi'iH ('(1}.!{0 
Ikih Sim!': (tclow Mk^ whach, Iciiviii^- only un Iiicliiicd |il)iiu'. 
Kwcc^piii!.'; up (Voiii Uui \va.i(U''M (hIjj;'0 I^o (ho Hl.iu'por jiiirtHol' 
l\ic bor,",', id. uii a,iij;lo ol' ahoiil, 'JO dogroofl. l*\uu!y ii nlid) 
ol' llaJiiiii niarI)lo, I'oiir a,iid livo liimdr(Ml (bid. in Avidl.li, 
oxtondhig iVom l.lio oa,V(';i ol' dlio ('i|,y Hull, Now York, 
linH-way ov iiioro down iJio park. I llnnk you will luivo 
a iolonihlo notion of llio slo]»o now luduru uh. Up lliin 
Bli]>])ory iiold of ivory lia,iHliuvst4 roll Mio wavos, ilark an 
.nij;'ld. uidil (lu\y nlriko Mio ioi>, w lion, in a (laMli, thoy 
iurn into lliai lovi'ly <:;i\hmi of (lio wa, and uTliM-ward 
Ibi'Oalc in Ion;;- linoM of tutnidiiioiiH Coain. Tlio spoclaclo 
in |)orlvclly mag'iiificonl. A noaiu of ico, apparonlly six 
inidioM in dianudi'r, of (ho liuo ol' n. Ha.pphin\, cuIh (lu^ lu>i'<.»; 
from ilH voiy lop (K)\vn, aiul doubtloHS cuts through (ho 
(Miiiro Huhinarino body. 'TliiH jowid of Mio ii!ol)Org is a 
Wdnd(Mfiil l»i\udy, Sparkles of light Booni to como from 
its Idiio, (nuuspa.rout dojdhs. What, at first, np})oar8 mii- 
gular is, that tlioso bluo veins aro muoli softer tluin the 
STirrouiuling ieo, inoltiiig faBtor, and so boeoming cliannols 
in wlTu'li little torroiits glitter as tlioy run. At iirst, avo 
AvcMo at a. loss io know how they originated, but juvsently 
■felt satiHliod, (hai llu>y were ca-aoks filled with water, and 
frozen wIumi (lu^ Ixa;;;- was a j,<;laeier, This indelible mark 
of [)riinitivo broakago and repair indicates with some eor- 



oiui ri.AY WITH 'I'lii'; imoohm iioknm. 175 

nH'liu'HM 111" (>ri;!;iii.'il |ii'i|i(Mi(|icul;u' ol' lliii ice. Accdidin;'; 
|,() (.li(> l»lii«i I'itiiil ill Hid Ixt;;; imw hcloro mm, il, iw ()cc.ii|)y- 
ingvory 11(111 riy lln' poHil.ion il.wiiM in wIkmi i(, wjui ji, linHUio 
or (MHivaHHo (if llin ^lacior. Long iirocuHHioiifil IIih'm of 
broken i(;o ii,ro <M)iil,iiiii.'!Jly lloii.llii,"; off (Votii l,lio piucnl. 
borg, \vl»i(;Ii, in llio proccKtt ol' molting, hhhihiio many 
curious hIiii|>('m, liiijni Jiiil.ldni of Uio moor.o luid oil:, uiul 
Hcu-Ibwl, gooHo .'iml (liicIvM, <»r i;igfintit! liguro. Wo liiivo 
juHl-, Huccoodod ill iiocuring oiio ol' thoso untlorM, and a 
morry timo wo liad. IV-foro roaching it, wo HuppoHud ono 
ronld bond over iMiil lil'l, il. oul, of tlio watur ait cjinily an 
lio Ht()()|iH niiil |tl('lui ii|) :i, Imck'n Ikud (UiI, of llm prairio 
gniHH. I(. wa;i a iiiii.lcli (iir iJirco ol" mi, nnd cMcapi'd (till, 
of our liaiiih niid !M'iii;i rrpc'iJcdly, t;lip|)ing back iiil.M llio 
wav('H, mid ri'(|iiiriii|'; mi lo nmiid lo ii.!';ain juid a;!;;i,iii Ixiloro 
W(! fairly li.id it. Am il, in llio liardcHJ. and llio lioaviuHJ, 
HO il. iM Hid iiiomI. Mlippcry of a.II iccM, and certainly it H(jonm 
to mo tlio (K>ldoHl, thing ii|ioii wliicli liiuiian liandH woro 
over laid. Onr RuinnKn- oakcH, liand(Ml in l»y tlio ico-man, 
are warm, I fancy, in compariHon. I do not wonder that 
Iho face of icebergH bnrnt olf, under tlio oxpanwion of tlio 
lieat they reccivo in thcuo duly dayM. The Mirfaco of this 
horn \h not l.ho Icaitt ciiiIoiih fcatnn^ of il. : it in nndted 
into circular dcproHwionH about thu dcplh !i,nd mI/.o of a 
largo watcli-cryHtaJ, all cutting into each other with Buch 



176 SPLENDOR OP THE BEEG AT SUNSET. 

regularity that their angles fall into lines parallel and 
diagonal in the most artistic manner. Now that we have 
it in the boat, it resembles a pair of mammoth moose- 
horns sculptured from water-soaked alabaster. We see 
several of them now, five or six feet tall, rocking and 
nodding on the swells as if they were the living append- 
ages of some old moose of the briny deep, come up to 
sport a little in the world of warmth and sunshine. 

C finds great difficulty in painting, from the 

motion of the boat ; but it is the best thing in the ser- 
vice, after all, for the men can take a position^ and keep 
it by the help of oars, in spite of the waves and currents 
which beset an iceberg. The moments for which we have 
been waiting are now passing, and the berg is immersed 
in almost supernatural splendors. The white alpine peak 
rises out of a field of delicate purple, fading out on one 
edge into pale sky-blue. Every instant changes the 
quality of the colors. They flit from tint to tint, and 
dissolve into other hues perpetually, and with a rapidity 
impossible to describe or paint. I am tempted to 
look over my shoulder into the north, and see if the 
" merry dancers " are not coming, so marvellously do the 
colors come and go. The blue and the purple pass uj) 
into peach-blow and pink. Now it blushes in the last 
look of the sun-red blushes of beauty — tints of the 



SPLENDOE OF THE BERG AT SUNSET. 177 

roseate birds of the south — the complexion of the roses 
of Damascus. In this delicious dye it stands embalmed 
— only for a minute, though ; for now the softest dove- 
colors steal into the changing glory, and turn it all into 
light and shade on the whitest satin. The bright green 
waves are toiling to wash it whiter, as they roll up from 
the violet sea, and explode in foam along the broad 
alabaster. Power and Beauty, hand in hand, bathing the 
bosom of Purity. I need not pause to explain how all 
this is ; but so it is, and many times more, in the pass- 
ing away of the sunshine and the daylight. It is wonder- 
ful ! I had never dreamed of it, even while I have been 
reading of icebergs well described. As I sit and look at 
this broken work of the Divine fingers, — only a shred 
broken from the edge of a glacier, vast as it is — I whisper 
these words of Eevelation : " and hath washed their 
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
It hangs before us, with the sea and the sky behind it, 
like some great robe made in heaven. Where the flow- 
ing folds break into marble-like cliffs, on the extreme 
wings of the berg, an inward green seems to be pricking 
through a fine straw tint, sj)angled with gold. Weary, 
chilly, and a little sea-sick, I am glad to find the Painter 
giving the last touches to a sketch, and to hear him give 

the word for return. The men, who in common with 
8* 



178 BrLKNDOU OF THE BEKG AT SUNSET. 

all thoso people of this noitluM-u t^oa liavo a terror of ieo- 
bergs, gladly lift tlie sails, and so, with Captain Knight 
at the holm, we are speeding over the waves for Battle 
Harbor. 



CIIArTEU XXXVl. 

KAMBLE AMONG TIIK FLOWKIJS OP BATTLE ISLAND.-A VISIT TO 
THE riSllEUMKN.-WALK AMONO THE HILLS OP 0AU115OO. 

Satuhday, July 9. Wo aro abroad again on (ho 
rocky hills, fanned with tho soft^ BUinmcr wind, and 
blossod with tho lovoliost sunshiuo. Tho mossos sparkle 
wi(h their sweet-scouted hlossoms of purple, white, ami 
red, and tho wood-thrush is pouring out its plaintive 
molody over tho bleak crags, and tho homes of fishermen, 
around whoso doors I sco tho children playing as merrily 
as tho children of fortune in more ftivorcd lands, llow 
many a tender parent, now watching over a sick child in 
the wealthy city, would bo glad to have tho sufterer hero, 
to be the playfellow of those simple boys and girls, if he 
could have their health and promise of life. Captain 
Knight comes with his hands full of flowers, not unlike the 
daisy ; and here come Hutchinson and the Painter. We 



180 A VISIT TO THE FISHEKMEN. 

meet around this moss-covered crag, where I am sitting 
with my "book and pencil, and resolve at once to go down, 
and visit an islet of the harbor, where a few families have 
a summer residence during the fishing season. 

Here we are among the huts and dogs, and English 
people, with the ways of Labrador. A kind woman, with 
whom I have been talking about the deprivations of her 
lot in life, has offered to bake bread for us when we can 
send the flour. The Painter is out sketching this summer 
nest upon the bleak, surf-washed rocks, about as wild- 
looking as the nesting-place of sea-birds. Generous- 
hearted people ! I am pleased with their simple ways, 
and their affectionate, but most respectful manner 
toward their pastor. Well, indeed, they may be both, 
respectful and affectionate. His life is a sacrifice for 
them and their children. What but the love of Christ 
and of men could lead one here, and keep him here, who 
can ornament and bless the most cultivated society ? 
I thank Grod, that He gives us witness, in such men, of 
the power and excellency of His grace upon the human 
heart. We sail across the harbor to a cove, or chasm in 
the lofty sea-wall, with the intention of a walk over the 
hills of Cariboo, while Hutchinson visits a few of his pa- 
rishioners thereabouts. 

After a pleasant ramble, during which we were often 



WALK AMONG THE HILLS OF CARIBOO. 181 

tempted to run and jump with very delight along the 
spongy, springy moss, hlushing here and there with its 
sweet bloom, we sit down on the top of a high hiU, and 
look off upon the ocean and the bay of St. Louis, extend- 
ing: far into the desolate interior like a series of blue lakes. 
All the beauteous apparel of summer has been stripped 
off, and the brown and broken bones of the sad earth are 
bleaching in the wind and sun. You would be delighted, 
though, with the little vales, notched and shelved with 
craggy terraces that catch and hold the sunshine. They 
have the sultry warmth and scent of a conservatory, and 
are frequently rich with herbage, now in flower. It seems 
a pity that these nooks of verdure and floral beauty 
should thus '' waste their sweetness on the desert air." 
For a few days, the woolly flocks of New England would 
thrive in Labrador. During those few days, there arc 
thousands of her fair daughters who would love to tend 
them. I prophesy the time is coming when the invaUd 
and tourist from the States will be often found spending 
the brief, but lovely summer here, notwithstanding its rug- 
gedness and desolation. Upon reflection, a broad and an- 
cient solitude like this has a sadness in it which no bloom, 
no sun can dispel. Never, never, in all my life, have I 
beheld a land like this, the expression and sentiment of 
which are essentially mournful and melancholy. The 



182 WALK AMONG THE HILLS OF CARIBOO. 

sunshine, skies, "the pomp and circumstance of" ocean, 
sweet smells, and sounds, and one's own joyous, healthy- 
feelings, flowing out and washing out as they flow the nat- 
ural sadness of the soul, cannot take away nor cover up 
that which really and everlastingly is, and ever will he, 
namely, the sentiment of mournfulness. Nature here is 
at a funeral forever, and these beauties, so delicately 
fashioned, are but flowers in the coffin. 

It is a coincidence a little curious that I should have 
written these periods above, and then have plunged into 
just the most lonesome little valley in all the world to 
hit upon a graveyard. But there it was, a gloomy, silent 
field, enclosed with the merest dry skeleton of a fence, for 
no purpose to tee-p a creature out where no creature is, 
but just to make a scratch around the few narrow beds 
where the dead repose, unpraised and unnamed, under 
the lightest possible covering of dust, as undisturbed as 
in the deeps of the Atlantic. From the tombless ceme- 
tery, our way back to the vessel over the hills resembled 
the crossing of mountains just below the line of perpetual 
snow. Upon the summit we encountered a small lake 
and marshes with water-plants and flowers. At the east- 
ern extremity of the island, where the rocks break off 
steeply some hundreds of feet, we saw every object of the 
port nearly beneath, and apparently within stone's throw. 



WALK AMONG THE HILLS OF CARIBOO. 183 

A novel sight to us was tlie bottom of the harbor^ seen 
tlirough the clear, greenisk water with considerable dis- 
tinctness almost from end to end. Patches of sea-weed, 
dark rocks, and wliito gravel, seemed to be lying in the 
bottom of a shallow mirror, across which small fishes, 
large ones in reality, were wandering at their leisure. 
This was a picturesque revelation. Upon the surface of 
the harbor, the depth of water very nearly shuts out all 
view of the bottom. I am beginning to think that a few 
thousand feet above the ocean, in a bright day, would 
enable the eye to pierce it to an extraordinary depth. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

AFTEE THE BAT ST. LOUIS ICEBERG.— WINDSOE CASTLE ICEBEEG.— 
FOUNDEES SUDDENLY.— A BEILLIANT SPECTACLE. 

After dinner, upon tlie heights of Battle Island, 
gathering roots, plants, and mosses to carry home. We 
notice with pleasure the largest iceberg by far that we 
have ever yet seen. It is the last arrival from Green- 
land, and is abreast Cape St. Louis, in the northeast. 
It is a stupendous thing, and reminds me of Windsor 
Castle, as I know it from pictures and engravings. It 
appears to be wheeling in toward the bay, with a front of 
great elevation and extent, finely adorned with projec- 
tions and massive towers not unlike those of the regal 
structure of which it reminds me. I see by the 
watch it is nearly 4 P. m., the time set for our de- 
parture to a Bay St. Louis berg. Pencil and note-book 



AFTER THE BAY ST. LOUIS ICEBERG. 185 

must be pocketed, and haste be made with my vegetable 
gatherings. 

Pencil and note-book reappear, and the sketch recom- 
mences. Half-way to the chosen iceberg, in the mouth 
of the bay, rowing slowly over the glassy, low swells, as 
they move in from sea. These are the swells for me : 
broad, imperial swells, full of majesty, dignity, and grace ; 
placid and serene of countenance ; solemn, slow, and si- 
lent in their roll. They are the swells of olden time, 
royal and aristocratic, legitimately descended from those 
that bore the ark upon their bosom, and used to bear the 
unbroken images of the orbs of heaven. Keplete with 
gentleness and love and power, they lift us lightly, and 
pass- us over tenderly from hand to hand, and toss us 
pleasantly and softly from breast to breast, and roll us 
carefully from lap to lap, and smile upon us with their 
shining smiles. Grand and gracious seas ! With you I 
love the ocean. With you I am not afraid. And with 
you, how kind and compassionate of you, ye old patrician 
billows ! with you I am not sea-sick. Save us from 
those plebeian waves, that rabble-rout of surges, that 
democratic " lop," lately born, and puffed into noisy 
importance ! They scare me, and, worst of all, make 
me sick and miserable. 

Every few minutes we hear the artillery of the ice- 



186 WiJ^DSUli CASTLE ICEJiEKG. — rOUNBEliS. 

bergs, and arc on the watcli for fine displays, this warm 

afternoon. C is sketching hastily, with the pencil, 

Windsor Castle berg, now in complete view, and distant, 
I should guess, five miles. It is a mighty and imposing 
structure. 

Between making my last dot and now — an interval 
of ten minutes — Windsor Castle has experienced the 
convulsions of an earthquake, and gone to ruin. To use 
the term common hero, it has " foundered." A maga- 
zine of powder fired in its centre, could not more 
effectually, and not much more quickly, have blown it 
up. While in the act of sketching, C suddenly ex- 
claimed : when, lo ! walls and towers were falling 
asunder, and tumbling at various angles with apparent 
silence into the ocean, attended with the most prodigious 
dashing and commotion of water. Enormous sheaves of 
foam sprung aloft and burst in air ; high, green waves, 
crested with white-caps, rolled away in circles, mingling 
with leaping shafts and fragments of ice reappearing 
from the deep in all directions. Nearly the whole of 
this brilliant spectacle was the performance of a minute, 
and to us as noiseless as the motions of a cloud, for a 
length of time I had not expected. When the uproar 
reached us, it was thunder doubled and redoubled, roll- 
ing upon the car like the quick successive strokes of a 



A BUILLIANT SPECTACLE. 187 

(Iruni, or volleys of the largest ordnance. It was awfully- 
grand, and altogether the most startling exhibition I 
ever witnessed. At this moment, there is a large field of 
ruins, some of them huge masses like towers prone along 
the waters, with a lofty steeple left alone standing in the 
midst, and rocking slowly to and fro. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

SUNDAY IN LABEADOE.— EVENING WALK TO THE GEATEYAED.— TUE 
EOCKY OCEAN SHOEE. 

Sunday evening, July 10. We have had a heaii- 
tifiil and interesting day. Early in the morning, flags 
were flying from tlie shijjping, and from the taU staff in 
front of the church, the only bell-tower of the town. 
Boats, with people in their Sunday hest, soon came row- 
ing in from difierent quarters, for the services of the day, 
in which I had the pleasure of assisting. The house, 
seating about two hundred people, was crowded, morning 
and afternoon, with a devout and attentive congregation, 
responding loudly, and singing very spiritedly. 

Before sunset, we left the parsonage for a quiet 
walk. Falling into a crooked path, we followed it to 
the burying-ground in the bottom of a narrow, deep 
hollow, where time has gathered from the surrounding 



EVENING WALK TO THE GRAVEYARD. 189 

rocks a depth of earth sufficient for shallow graves. 
While yet the sunshine was bright upon the high, over- 
hanging cliffs, dotted with lichens and tufted with their 
summer greenery, the little vale below, with its brown 
gravestones nearly lost in the rank verdure, was im- 
mersed in cool and lonesome shadows. An unavoid- 
able incumbrance of the sacred field was several lare-e 
bowlders, among which the long grass, and weeds and 
tablets were irregularly dispersed. 

It is the custom of the English church to consecrate 
burying-grounds. Eleven years ago. Bishop Field conse- 
crated this. It was a pleasant Sunday morning, and the 
procession, with the bishop at its head clothed in his offi- 
cial robes, descended by the winding path, and performed 
the appointed service. Nearly the whole population of 
the region was present, either in the jDrocession, or look- 
ing down with silent admiration from the rocky galleries 
around. A better resting-place, when one lies down 
weary from the tasks and troubles of the present life, 
could not well be imagined. Its perpetual solitude, 
never profaned by the noisy feet of the busy world, 
draped alternately with snowy fleeces and blooming 
verdure, is always made musical by the solemn mur- 
murs of the ocean. I found by the inscriptions, that 
England was the native country of most of those whose 



190 THE ROCKY OCEAN SHORE. 

bones repose below, and whose names are gatbering moss 
and lichens, while the sea, close by, sings their mournful 
requiem. 

From this lone hamlet of the dead, we picked our 
way among broken rocks out to the sea shore, all white 
with the sounding surf, and gazed with silent pleasure 
on the blue Atlantic, the dark headlands, and the ice- 
bergs glittering in the sunset. Glittering in the sunset ! 
They glowed with golden fire — pointed, motionless, and 
solid flames. 

Battle Island, had there never been any bloody con- 
test of angry men, would be an appropriate name. The 
whole northeastern shore, once a lofty precipice, no 
doubt, but now a descent of indescribable ruggedness, is 
an extended field, whereon for ages flinty rocks and 
mighty waves have contended in battle. A favorite 
walk of Hutchinson's, during the wintry tempests, is 
along the height overlooking this mighty slope or glacis. 
His quiet description of the terrible grandeur of the 
scene, was truly thrilling. In the course of our walk, we 
came upon the verge of a fissure, which looked like an 
original intention to split the island through its centre. 
Banks of snow stiU lay in the nooks and closets of its 
gloomy chambers, through which, every now and then, 
boomed the low thunder of the plunging surf. 



THE ROCKY OCEAN SHORE. 191 

Upon our return, late in the evening, although quite 
light, we wandered over tracts of the elastic, flowering 
moss. The step is rendered exceedingly bouyant, and 
invites you to skip and hound through the richly car- 
peted hollows. After prayer at the parsonage, wo 
returned to the vessel, and talked in our berths until 
slumber made us silent, past midnight. 



CHAPTEE XXXIX. 

THE SAIL TO FOX IIAKBOK.— A DAT WITH THE ESQUIMAUX, AND 
OUR EETURN. 

Monday, July 11. After icebergs in St. Micliael's 
Bay, was to have been the order of the morning. It lies 
northward forty miles, and usually abounds in icebergs 
of the largest size, Mr. Hutchinson informs us. There 
is not, however, the least necessity for passing Cape St. 
Louis, south of which there is ice enough in sight for all 
the painters in the world. But the charm of novelty is 
almost irresistible. Had we the time, we would see the 
glaciers themselves, of which these bergs are merely the 
chippings. What has suddenly caused this change in 
our plans is an approaching storm. It will never do for 
us to be out at sea in a cold northeaster, if it possibly can 
be avoided. The painter and I are so given over to sea- 
sickness, in rough weather, that nothing can be enjoyed, 



THE SAIL TO FOX HARBOR. 193 

and nothing clone with pen or pencil. The work and 

play of the day are finally determined. C with the 

Captain will cruise southerly among the bergs of Belle 
Isle, and I will go with Mr. Hutchinson and Botwood 
north, across St. Louis water to Fox Harbor, one of 
the points of this extended parish. 

We leave, past noon a little, sailing very pleasantly 
by the ices, which appear to be in considerable motion. 
Several are going to sea, and may reach the track of New 
Yorkers voyaging to Europe, and be thought very won- 
derful and fine ; and so indeed they will be, should they 
lose half of their present bulk. There appears to be no 
end to the combinations of these icy edifices. They 
mimic all the styles of architecture upon earth ; rather, 
all styles of architecture may be said to imitate them, 
inasmuch as they were fl.oating here in what we please to 
call Greek and Gothic forms long before Greek or Goth 
were in existence. Yonder, now, is a cluster of Gothic 
cottages. I trace out a multitude of peaked gables and 
low porches, and think of Sunny Side upon the Hudson. 

Two hours have slipped away, and we approach the 
northern shore, attended by no less a travelling com- 
panion than a small whale. Now he blows just behind 
us, disappears, and blows again upon our right. There 

lie blows ahead of us. Here he is close upon our left. 




194 A DAY "WITH THE ESQUIMAUX. 

The fellow is diving under us. All this may he very 
pretty sport for the whale, but with all the merry re- 
marks of Hutchinson, respecting the good nature of our 
twenty-foot out-rider, I confess I am relieved to find that 
he is gradually enlarging the field of his amusements. 

The mouth of Fox Harbor all at once discovers itself, 
and lots us in upon a small sheet of water, not unlike a 
mountain lake with its back-ground of black, wild hills. 
A few huts, a wharf, and fish-house appear upon the 
margin of the narrow peninsula that lies between the 
harbor and the bay. The people are pure Esquimaux 
and English, with a mixture from intermarriage. The 
patriarch of the place, perhaps sixty years of age, with 
his wife, and, I believe, the elder members of the family, 
are natives of a high latitude, and a good specimen of 
the arctic race. They are now members of the English 
Church, and for piety and virtue compare w^ell with 
Christians anywhere. 

In the course of the afternoon, their pastor held 
divine service, and administered the sacrament of bap- 
tism. There were between twenty and thirty present, 
old and young, some of whom had prayer-books and 
responded. The sermon, which I was invited to preach, 
I made as simple and practical as possible, and found 
f^irnest and lioncst listeners. After an examination of 



OUR RETURN. 195 

furs and snow-shoes, reindeer liorns, and seal-skin, fresh 
from the seal, and still loaded with its fat or blubber, we 
had an exhibition of the kayak. It was light and tight, 
and ringy as a drum, and floated on the water like a 
bubble. Under the strokes of the kayaker, it darted for- 
ward over the low swells with a grace and fleotness un- 
known to the birch bark canoe. After tea, and a very 
good tea, too ; in foot, after two teas, we bade the 
Esquimaux farewell and sailed away, taking one of their 
number along with us, who had formerly been a servant, 
and was now to resume her old jdaco as such, in the 
parsonage. About half way across the bay, a squall from 
sea struck us with startling suddenness. But our bold 
young sailing-master, Mc Donald, the mate and owner 
of our vessel, managed the boat admirably, and wo fairly 
flew through the white-caps to the smooth water of our 
harbor. In the evening we gathered in at the parsonage, 
taking tea, made and served by the Esquimaux woman, 
telling the adventures of the day, botli north and south, 
and returning at midnight to our cabin. 



CHAPTER XL. 

A MOENING EAMBLE OVEK CAEIBOO.— EXCUESIGN ON THE EAT, AND 
THE TEA-DEINKING AT THE SOLITAET EISHEEMAN'S. 

Tuesday, July 12. Cold as November, and a gale 
outside. After a late breakfast, we roam the hills of 
Cariboo, under the cliifs of which the Integrity now 
lies tied to the rocks. We gather roots and flowers, 
gaze upon the vast and desolate prospect, count the 
icebergs, and watch the motions of the fog driving, in 
large, cloud-like masses, across the angry ocean. It is 
surprising how much we do in these, to us, almost inter- 
minable days. But for the necessity of it, I believe that 
we should not sleep at all, but work and play right on 
from midnight into morning, and from morning down to 
midnight. We have a large afternoon excursion before 
us. Previous to that, however, the Captain and myself 
are going upon an exploring expedition. 



EXCUKSION ON THE BAY, 197 

Coasting the soutliern shores of St. Louis water, 
having a little private amusement by ourselves. The 
breeze, in from sea, gives us about as much as we can 
manage. Gives iis about as much as ice can manage ! 
" Us " and " We " have not a great deal to do with it. 
This half of the "us" and the "we," the Me and the 
subjective I, as your Kantian philosopher calls his essen- 
tial self, sits here about midship, bear-skinned in with 
a fleecy brown coat, holding on, and dodging the spray 
that cuffs him on the right and left ; while the other, 
and vastly larger half, in the shape of the captain, 
holds all the reins of this marine chariot in his own single 
hand — ropes, rudder and all, and holds them, too, well 
and wisely. But we enjoy the freedom of these spirited, 
though harmless seas, and dash along through most 
charmingly. 

What coasts these are ! " Precipitous, black, jagged 
rocks," savage as lions and tigers showing their claws 
and teeth, and foaming at the lips. Here is a chasm 
called a . cove, up which the green water runs in the 
shape of a scimetar or horn — the piercing and the goring 
of the sea for unknown centuries. Away in the extreme 
hollow of this horn is a fishing-flake, and half-way up, 
where the sea-birds would naturally nest, a Scotch fisher- 
man has his summer-home. We are going in to see liim. 



198 THE FISHEKMAN. 

He met us at the water's edge, and welcomed us witli 
a fisherman's welcome — none heartier in the world — and 
sent us forward hj a zigzag path to the house hidden 
away among the upper rocks. In the very tightest place 
of the ascent, there swept down upon us an avalanche 
of dogs furiously barking — a kind of onset for which I 
have had a peculiar disrelish ever since I was overthrown 
by a ferocious mastiff in my childhood. I sprang to the 
tip of a crag, and stood out of their reach, while they 
bristled and barked at the Captain, vv^ho coolly main- 
tained his ground. The shout of the fisherman's wife, 
who now appeared on the edge of the scene above, in- 
stantly stilled the uproar, and invited us up with the 
cheering assurance that they seldom bit anybody, and 
were rather glad than angry that we had come. The 
language of dogs being very much the same in all 
countries, I took occasion to doubt any pleasure that 
Bull, Brindle, and Bowse were thought to have felt at 
our presence. The rascals smelt closely at my heels 
and hands, with an accompaniment of bristling backs 
and tails, and deep-throated growls. We were no 
sooner in the house and seated than the goodman him- 
self arrived, and ordered the kettle to the fire for a " bit 
of tea." " It would do us good," he said. " When 
strangers came, he commonly had a bit of tea." His 



THE FJSHEUMAiV. 199 

life had been a struggle for food and raiment : such was 
the tenor of his brief history. Four children were with 
him ; four were in a better world. Forty years he had 
been a fisherman. Thirty, on these shores. They came 
up yearly from Carbonear in the early days of June, 
cleared the house of ice and snow, and got ready for the 
fish. Their dogs, which are their only team in New- 
foundland, would be lo^ if left behind, and so they 
brought them along to save them. After tea, a fine 
game-cock took possession of the floor, walking close in 
front, looking up sideways in an inquisitive and comical 
manner, and crowing very spiritedly. Hard by, in a box 
beneath a bed, I caught a glimpse of the red comb of a 
hen, his only mate. A little, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed 
girl ran and brought her out as something to surprise 
and delight us. And so with cock and hen, and chil- 
dren, the fisherman and his wife, mariner and minister, 
we were a social party. Thus the human heart spins 
out its threads of love, and fastens them even to the 
far-distant rocks of cold and barren Labrador, They took 
us through their fish-house, which hung like a birdcage 
among the crags, and afterwards followed us down to 
the water, and gave our bark a kindly push," and thus 
we parted." 



CHAPTER XLI. 

PAINTING THE CAVERN OF GREAT ISLAND, AND QUE SAIL HOME- 
WARD IN A GALE. 

Two o'clock p, M. The wind lias moderatedj and 
blows from the land. We sail out upon the eastern or 
ocean side of G-reat Island. This is not precisely the ex- 
cursion proposed in the morning, which was to an iceberg 
in the bay. It is the bestj though, that we can do, and 
may turn out very well. I could wish a less exciting 
passage in than we had out, when, for the first, I learned 
the power of wind to knock a vessel over at a single blow. 
It pounced upon us, as it swept over the lofty ridge of the 
island, in puffs and gusts quite frightful. At one mo- 
ment, the sails would be without a breath ; at another, 
the wonder is that they were not burst from their fasten- 
ings. As the Captain turned into the wind, the boat 
would jump as if going out of the water. Some training 



PAINTING THE CAVERN OF GREAT ISLAND. 201 

is necessary for your landsman to bear this with perfect 
coolness. After landing us, the Captain, with a couple 
of men, plays off and on between a fishing-fleet and shore, 

while C paints the particular part of the coast for 

which we have come. 

It consists of what once might have been a grand cav- 
ern, but now fallen in, and all its cragged gulf opened to 
the day. Into the yawning portal of this savage chasm 
plunge the big waves of the Atlantic. In an easterly 
gale, there is performed in this gloomy theatre no farce 
of the surges, but the grandest tragedy. In fact, this 
whole coast, a thousand miles or more, is built up, rather 
torn down, on the most stupendous scale — vast and shat- 
tered — terrifically rough — tumult and storm all in horrid 
stone. It would well pay the painter of coast scenery to 
spend a fall and mnter upon these shores. The breaking 
of the waves upon such rocks as these must be an aston- 
ishing spectacle of power and fury. The charge and the 
retreat of billows upon slopes of rock so torn and shat- 
tered, for miles and miles at the same moment, Mr. 
Hutchinson repeatedly declares, is one of the most bril- 
liant and imposing sights on earth. Wliile C is 

painting, I have been writing these periods, and clamber- 
ing the mossy cliffs for plants and flowers. Half-past 7, 
and Captain Knight below, waiting for us near the mouth 



202 OlUi t^All, 110J\1K\VAU1> IN A UALK. 

o( tlu> olmsm. The lLshiiii;--lloct is ditiiporsing, hoiuoward- 
bouiul, ninl \vo aro now ready to put up paiut and pencil, 
ami join in llio i;'ouoral run. 

TluMV is notliinj; like a (lasll of pori] to Nvako one up. 
Now llial, 1 am quielly t^itlin;;- by (lie eabin t-andlesi, I 
will .^keteh you our passage in. These uoies are usually 
taken on (he spot ; \\\)on llie occasion (U' Avhieli I am at 
present speaking, my not e-book was bulUnied in prelly 
ligbdy in its poeket. 

!( was blowing a gale, but, fortunately for us, from 
the laud, lu fioui sea., (he same wind would liavo driven 
all inio the surf Olosc-reefed as wo were, and under the 
island, with a. eapital craft, and Captain Knight, the 
very best i)f sailors, it was quite enough for us. We were 
almost over at limes. The sliarji, short seas thumped 
our bows like slodge-hanuners. Tlie spray flashed aeross 
like water iVom an engine, Tliere were the hum and 
trenddiug of a swiftly revolving wheel. AVhen she eamo 
into tlu'wind for a taek, all sliook and eraeked again, and 
then sang on shrill and wildly as shuttle-like we shot to 
tlie next point of turning. A few small islands make a 
net-work of channels. Throuo-h this entauirlement we 
and the fisliing-fleet were now making our way home, 
crossing and reerossing, shooting here and there, singly 
and in pairs, with siuls black, white, and red — a lively and 



OlJIt HAIL IKJMhWAItl) IN A OAI.K. 203 

picturcBquc bi^ht, and jiiHt tlio pretticHt j»l;iy ju all l,h<; 
world, in a narrow nt.rait Icadi/i^ i/ilo Uio jiarbor, wc 
wcro nearly bafllc(i. Tho tempest, for to hucIi it liad in- 
creaHcd, at Horno moments, seemed to fall iijjon us from 
above, flattening the swells, and sweeping the spray about 
as a whirlwind sweeps the dust. Back and f'^rlh we dart- 
ed between tlie iron shores, wheeling in tlic nick of time, 

and losing nearly as often as wo gained. C and J 

lay close b(;low tlie booms, and watched the strife as one 
might watch a battle round the comer of a wall. Wrap- 
pod in heavy overcoats, and wet and chilly, we came, not- 
withstanding, to enjoy it vastly. C fairly overflowed 

with fun and humor. But what admirable sailors arc 
these northern seamen, in their schooner whalelxjats 1 
tlie veiy Tartars and Camanches of the ocean ! They go 
off to tlio fishing-grounds in stormy weather, and stay 
with unconquerable patience at their hard and dangerous 
labor. Under tlio cliffs of Cariboo we glided into calm 
water, and looked back at the dark and troubled deep, in 
broad contrast with the clouds and icebergs resplendent 
with rosy sunlight. 



GHAPTEK XLII. 

AFTEK THE ICEBERG OF BELLE ISLE— THE EETEEAT TO CAET- 
WEIGHT'S TICKLE— BEIDGET KENNEDY'S COTTAGE, AND THE 
LONELY STEOLL OVEE CAEIBOO. 

Wednesday, July 13. We rise with the inten- 
tion of spending the day in Belle Isle water to the 
south, around what we call the Grreat Castle Berg — an 
. object, from the first, of our particular regard. The 
breeze freshens from the north, but the Captain thinks 
we may lie safely to the leeward of the ice, and so sketch 
and write. Battle Harbor has a narrow and shallow j^as- 
sage into the south water. We have slipped through 
that, and are now scudding before a pleasant north- 
easter, directly toward the castle, and the northern cape 
of Bell Isle. We are having a long ground-swell, rough- 
ened with a "lop" or short sea, and the promise of 
• high wind. The fishing boats, more out to sea, are put- 
ting in — a signal for our retreat. We confess ourselves 
beaten for the day, and run for Cartwright's Tickle, a 



THE RETREAT TO CARTV/RIGHT'S TICKLE, 205 

small inlet, a mile or so distant. And a merry run of it 
we are having ; a kind of experience to "wliich we were 
put yesterday afternoon. Wet witli sjDray, and chilly, 
we are glad to jump ashore at. Mrs. Bridget Kennedy's 
fishing-flake. 

Kind woman, she was on the spot to ask us up 
" to warm, and take a drop of tea," although no later 
than 10 o'clock. Mrs. Kennedy, a smart Irish widow of 
Newfoundland, is '' the fisherman ; " and has men and 
maidens in her employ. While the tea was really 
refreshing, and the fire acceptable, the smoke was ter- 
rible — a circumstance over which I wept bitterly, 
wiping away the tears with one hand, while I j)liGd 
the hot drink with the other. From this painfully 
affecting scene I was presently fain to retire to a sunny 
slope near by, where I was soon joined by my companion 
in suffering, who indulged himself, perhaps too freely, in 
remarks that reflected no great credit on the architect 
and builder of Mrs. Kennedy's summer-house and chim- 
ney, I cannot say that we wasted, but we whiled away, 
not overwillingly, the best part of two hours, looking 
around — looking across a bight of water, at a nest of 
flakes and huts on the hill-side, to which Swiss cottages 
are tame — looking over upon the good woman's garden, 
the merest spot of black, in which there is nothing but 



206 BEIDGET KENNEDY'S COTTAGE. 

soil slightly freckled with vegetation, fenced in with old 
fish-net to keep out the fowls, and a couple of goats — 
looking at the astonishment of our sailors over a syphon, 
made from the pliant, hollow stalk of a sea-weed, 
through which water flowed from the" surface of the sea 
into a basin placed upon the beach ; quite a magical per- 
formance they fancied it, until explained. 

Tired of waiting for the wind to lull sufficiently for 
an escape back by sea, I resolved to foot it over the hiUs 
to Battle Harbor, and have come off alone. I am sit- 
ting on the moss, out of the breeze, on the warm side of 
a crag, " basking in the noontide sun ; disporting here 
like any other fly." A part of the aforesaid amusement 
consists in scribbling these notes, and especially the ones 
relating our enjoyments and trials at hospitable Bridget 
Kennedy's. 

From the hill-top above rae I had a wide prospect 
of the dark, rough ocean ; and of darker and rougher 
land. Looking westerly, what should I discover but the 
painter, silent and motionless, looking out from another 
hiU-top .? Beyond him, far inland, is a chain of purple 
mountains, lording it over the surrounding tumult of 
brown and sterile hills, in the mossy valleys of which, 
they say, are dwarf woods of birch and spruce, pretty 
brooks, and reaches of blue sea- water. 



THE LONELY STROLL OVER CARIBOO. 207 

I have turned my walk back to the vessel, into a 
regular holiday stroll, jotting down from time to time 
whatever happens to please me. These deep amphi- 
theatres opening out of the hills to the sea, are quite 
charming, and novelties in landscape. And how almost 
painfully still they arc ! But for the dull roar of the 
surf, they would he silent as paintings. The cloudless 
sun, pouring its July brightness into them, gives them a 
hot-house sultriness ; and, in their moist places, almost 
a hot-house growth. The universal moss, the turf of the 
country, carpets their depths and graceful slopes, and 
lies upon their shelves like the richest rugs ; bright red, 
green, and yellow, and sprinkled with small, sweet- 
smelling flowers. Along the margin of the sea all is 
cracked and slashed, and has no pretty beach. Here 
now is a fast little brook, eagerly driving its spirited 
steed down one of these rocky cuts. Pleased with its 
speed, it hurras and cracks its whip, and swings its 
white-plumed cap, all in its way, as if rivers were look- 
ing on, and cataracts were listening with delight. Silly 
rivulet ! it sounds like water in a mill-wheel, and will in 
a moment more be lost in the great deep. Here again, 
a few steps higher up the vale, the rill expands into a 
pool, daintily cushioned round its edges. I lie down 
and drink ; kneel down and wash my hands ; wash my 



208 THE LONELY STROLL OVER CARIBOO. 

handkercliief and spread it in tlie sun to dry. Poor little 
fishes ! They dart and dodge about^ as if they had never 
felt before the look of a human face. Over there is a 
bed of grass, luxuriant as grain, witb a sprinkling of those 
cotton-tufted rushes. And I sing, as I sang in my boy- 
hood : 

" Green grow the rushes, ! 
'Tis neither you nor I do know, 
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow." 

After this lyrical feat, I straighten up, and look all 
around, to see if any one hears me, but only catch a 
glimpse of a tiny waterfall ; a little virgin all in white, 
spinning her silvery thread, as she looks out of her cham- 
ber window among the rocks above. For all the world ! 
Here comes a fly — one of our own house flies — the same 
careless, familiar fellow, whose motto is : " The dwelling 
owes me a living." Now what do you espect, you self- 
complacent little vagabond, standing here on my hand, 
and rubbing your head at this rate, looking me in the 
face, with all the thousand eyes you have, and none of 
the modesty of bugs finely dressed, and vastly your supe- 
rior ? I do suppose myself the first Yankee here, and 
here you are. Away with you ! I have a mind to run 
up yonder soft and sunny hill-side, and roll over and over 
to the bottom. I did run up the hill-side, but not to roll 



THE LONELY STEOLL OVER CARIBOO. 209 

back to the foot of it, on this most springy of all turfs. 
I sat down and panted, wiping the moisture from my 
forehead, and breathing the cool ocean breeze. A half 
hour's walk brought me over to the brow of the moun- 
tain, with the harbor and its vessels at my feet. 



CHAPTEE XLIII. 

THE ICEBEEG OF THE EIGUEE-HEAD.— THE GLOEY AND THE MUSIC 
OP THE SEA AT EVENING. 

Late in the afternoon^ and tlie breeze gone down. 
We are ofif on tlie gentle rollers of tlie Bay of St. Louig^ 
after a low, broad iceberg, covering, say, an acre of sur- 
face, and grounded in forty fathoms of water. It has 
upon one extremity a bulky tower of sixty feet, on the 
other, forty, and in the middle a huge pile of ice blocks 
of all -shapes and sizes, the ruins of some spire. While 
the outside of this heap of fragments is white, with tints 
of green, touched here and there with what seems to be 
the most delicate bronze and gilding ; every crevice, 
where there is a shadow lurking, is a blue, the purity 
and softness of which cannot be described nor easily 
imagined. To one who has any feeling for color, it has 
a sentiment as sweet as any thing in all visible nature. A 
pure, white surface, like this fine opaque ice, seen through 



THE ICEBERG OF THE FIGURE-HEAD. 211 

deep shade produces blue, and such a blue as oue sees 
in the stainless sky when it is full of warmth and light. 
It is quite beyond the rarest ultramarine of the painter. 
The lovely azure appears to pervade and fill the hollows 
like so much visible atmosphere or smoke. One almost 
looks to see it float out of the crystal ceils where it re- 
poses, and thin away into colorless air. 

We have just been honored by a royal salute from 
the walls of the alabaster fortress. Our kind ans-els will 
keep us at a safer distance than we are disposed to keep 
ourselves. A projecting table has fallen with that pecu- 
liarly startling crack, quick as lightning and loud as 
thunder. It seems impossible for my nerves to become 
accustomed to the shock. I tremble, in spite of myself, 
as one does after a fright. The explosion unquestionably 
has the voice of the earthquake and volcano. To my 
surprise, I find myself with cold feet and headache — those 
unfaihng symptoms of sea-sickness. By the jDainful ex- 
pression of his face, I suspect the painter is even worse 
off than myself. It is impossible to avoid feeling both 
vexed and amused at this companionship in misery. In 
his case, the climax has been attained. Laying down 
bcx and brushes with uncommon emphasis, he made a 
rapid movement to the edge of the boat, and looked over 
at his own image reflected in the glassy, oily-rolling 



212 GLORY AND MUSIC OF THE SEA AT EVENING. 

swell, with loud and violent demonstrations of disagree- 
ment with himself. After this unhappy outbreak, he 
wiped away the tears, and returned suhdued and com- 
posed to the gentler employment of the paint-box. 

It is nearly nine o'clock in the evening, with the 
downiest clouds dropped around the retiring sun. What 
light must be behind them to fill them with such wealth 
of color, and dye their front with such rich and varied 
red ! The very waves below bloom with a crimson 

splendor. C has finished his pictures, and we row 

around the berg, a singularly irregular one, both above 
and below the surface. The surrounding water, to the 
eye nearly black, is irradiated, star-like, with tracts of 
the clear, tender green. The effect upon us is inde- 
scribably fine. I think of deep down caverns of light 
shining up through the dark sea. The blocks and bowl- 
ders, wrecks of former towers, which lie scattered and in 
heaps upon the main berg, are like the purest alabaster 
on their outer and upper sides, but of that heavenly 
azure in their fissures and spaces, although wrapped in 
the one great shade of evening. We now pause at the 
corner of the ice, and look down both its northern and 
western fronts ; the upper stories, to all appearance, in 
rough marble — the lower, polished as a mirror. Almost 
over us, a Grreek-like figure-head, sculptured from shin- 



GLOKY AND MUSIC OF THE SEA AT EVENING. 213 

ing crystal, gazes with serene majesty uiDon the white 
daylight in the northwest. Possessed with the mournful 
and nearly supernatural beauty, we forget the dangers of 
this intimacy. There is a strange fascination, and par- 
ticularly at this hour, that draws like the fabulous music 
of the Sirens. We are headed homeward, riding silently 
over the glassy waves. The surf rings in the hollows of 
the iceberg, and sounds upon the shores like the last 
blows of the weary day. 



CHAPTBE XLIV. 

CAPE ST. CHAELES.— THE EIP VAN WINKLE BEKG.— THE GKEAT 
CASTLE BEEG.— STUDIES OF ITS DIFFERENT FRONTS. 

Thuksday, July 14. Off again for the Great Castle 
Berg. The passage from Battle Harbor into the south 
waters is a shallow, rocky lane, and furnishes very rare 
studies of color in stone. A large agate cut across would 
serve the painter very well as a sample of much that is 
seen here along the rough margin of this little strait. 
Wave-washed, and sparkling with mica and crystalliza- 
tions, and tinged with green and yellow mosses soft as 
plush, the' rocks are frequently very heautiful. Foremost 
along the coast, reaching southwest into the straits of 
Belle Isle, is Cape St. Charles, a brown promontory, rising, 
as it recedes from the sea, into rocky hills tinged with a 
pale green, the moss-pastures of the reindeer. Beyond the 
cape is a bay with mountain shores, not unlike those of 
Lake G-eorge. The fine smoke-like shadow along their 






L^v^ 



O 

W 










o 





.1—1 

w 
oq 
w 
o 



THE KIP VAN WINKLE BERG. 215 

sides is dapj)led with olive-green and yellowish tracts of 
moss and shrubbery. The annual expenditure of nature, 
on those poor mountains, for clothing and decoration is 
very small. She furnishes holiday suits of cheap and 
flimsy cloud, and the showy jewelry of the passing show- 
ers, but refuses any bounteous outlay for the rich and 
sumptuous apparel of green fields and forests. Beneath 
those sunny but desolate heights, there slumbers, in the 
purple, calm waters, an iceberg with a form and expression 
that harmonize with the landscape. I would call it the 
Rip Van Winkle iceberg. It seems to have been lying 
down, but now to be half up, reposing upon its elbow. 
Its head, recently pillowed on the drowsy swells, wears a 
shapeless, peaked hat, from the tip of which is dropping 
silvery rain through the warm, dreamy air. Between the 
calm and the currents, our oarsmen are having a warm 
time of it, I lay hold and labor until my hands smart, 
and I feel that hot weather has come at last to Labrador. 
We rest in front of the Great Castle Berg, the grand 
capitol of the city of icebergs now in the waters of Belle 
Isle, and, if I except the Windsor Castle Berg which we 
saw founder, the largest we have seen, and, what is most 
likely, the largest we ever shall see. We merely guess at 
tlic dimensions. Sailing up the Niagara, in the little 
steamer, how wide should you judge the fiills to be from 



216 THE GREAT CASTLE BERG. 

Table Eock across to the liorse-shoe tower ? I judge 
this ice-front to be two-thirds that width, and quite as 
high, if not higher, than the cataract. If this were float- 
ed up into that grand bend of Niagara, I think it would 
fill a large part of it very handsomely, with a tower rising 
sufficiently above the brink of the fall to be seen from the 
edge of the river for some distance above. Imagine the 
main sheet, reaching from Table Eock toward the Horse- 
shoe, to be silent ice, and you will have no very wrong no- 
tion of the ice before us at this moment. I do not mean 
to say that it has the bend of the great cataract, for it is 
on this side quite devoid of flowing lines, and abounds 
with, the perpendicular and horizontal for about fifty feet 
from the water, when the long and very level lines begin 
to be crossed by a fluted surface, resembling the folds 
of carefully arranged drapery hanging gracefully from the 
serrated line at the top. No other side will present this 
view at all. Change of XDOsition gives an iceberg almost 
as many appearances as a cumulous cloud assumes at sun- 
set in the summer sky. 

We have rounded an angle to the southern front, and 
look upon a precipice of newly broken alabaster crowned 
with a lofty peak and pinnacles. A slight sketch seems 
to satisfy the painter, and so we pass round to the eastern 
or ocean side, at which Captain Knight, an experienced 



STUDIES OF ITS DIFFERENT FRONTS. 217 

iceberger, expresses both delight and surprise. It is a 
cluster of Alpine mountains in miniature : peaks, preci- 
pices, slopes and gorges, a wondrous multitude of shining 
things, the general effect of which is imposing and sub- 
lime. We have been looking out from Battle Island 
upon this for days, and never dreamed of all this world 
of forms so grand and beautiful. Besides the main, there 
are two smaller bergs, but all nothing more than the 
crowning towers and spires of the great mass under the 
sea. Here is quite a little bay with two entrances, in 
which the pale emerald waves dash and thunder, washing 
the pearly shores, and wearing out glassy caverns. The 
marvellous beauty of these ices prompts one to speak in 
language that sounds extravagant. Had our forefathers 
lived along these seas, and among these wonders, we 
should have had a language better fitted to describe 
tliem. I can easily suppose that there must be a strong 
descriptive element in the Icelandic, and even in the 
Greenlandic tongues. I am quite tired of the words : 
emerald, pea-green, pearl, sea-shells, crystal, porcelain and 
sapphire, ivory, marble and alabaster, snowy and rosy, 
Alps, cathedrals, towers, pinnacles, domes and spires. I 
could fling them all, at this moment, upon a large descrip- 
tive fire, and the blaze would not be sufficiently brilliant 

to light the mere reader to the scene. I will give it up, 
10 



218 STUDIES OF ITS DIFFERENT FEONTS. 

at least for the present, and remark merely that we have 
received what the French newspapers occasionally receive 
— a warning. It came in the shape of a smart cracking 
of rifles in some large reverberating hall. There is un- 
douhtedly at hand the finest opportunity one could wish 
of witnessing an ice-fall. As it is now nearly 8 o'clock 
p. M., and the painting done, we shall take a hasty leave, 
and content ourselves with a distant view of ice- exhibi- 
tions, tame as they arc, when contrasted with those more 
dangerously close by. Our men have had some trouble 
in keeping the boat up to the berg in the right place for 
painting, (so powerful is the current on this side setting 
away,) and are glad of a change. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

THE SAIL FOR ST. CHAELES MOUNTAIN.— THE SALMON FISIIEE9.— 
THE CAVEPvN OF THE ST. CHAELES MOUNTAIN.— BUETONS COT- 
TAGE.— MAGNIFICENT SCENE FEOM ST. CHAELES MOUNTAIN.— 
THE PAINTING OF THE EIP VAN WINKLE BEKG.— THE ICE-VASE, 
AND THE EETUEN BY MOONLIGHT. 

Our sails are up, and wo glide landward, stopping to 
warm at a hut on a rocky islet. Two young fellows, en- 
gaged here in the salmon fishery, welcomed us to their 
cabin, and soon made their rusty old cooking-stove hot 
enough. The salmon are taken veiy much like our river 
shad, in nets set in sheltered waters. We have frequent- 
ly sailed past them, and seen the salmon entangled in the 
meshes at quite a depth in the clear sea water, where 
they have the singular appearance of yellow serpents 
writhing and bounding in the folds of the seine — an op- 
tical illusion caused by the distorting and magnifying 
effects of the rolling surface. These young fishermen 



-2'10 THE OAVKRN OF ST. CHARLES MOUNTAIN. 

havo several hogsheads lillod, and are about closing up 
for the season. Thoy wore not. a little amused with the 
idea of onr ooniing so tar to visit icebergs, but expressed 
surprise that ayo woulil rnn the risk of being close about 
them in such warm weather. After a walk over their 
island, the merest ci*est of rough rocks, in a storm washed 
very nearly froifii end to end, we set oif for St. Charles 
Mountain, quite lofty and rising perpendicularly from the 
sea. It is gashed and pierced with black chasms, some 
of which arc whitened with a kind of snowy glacier. Wo 
are now approaching a cavern to all appearance spacious 
enough for the dusk of a very pretty little twilight, with 
a doorway fifty feet in Avidth and a clear three hundred 
feet hisrh. The summit of the hill is six hundred and 
twenty feet above the tide, and the square-headed portal 
reaches all but half-way up. The ocean goes deep homo 
to the precipice, and so we sail right in. With the wet, 
black walls and the chilly shade behind, we look back 
upon the bright, sparkling sea and the sinning icebergs. 
The sound of the waves rings and rolls tlirough the huge 
space like the deep bass of a mighty organ. We retreat 
slowly, rising antl sinking on the dark, inky swells ccdning 
in, and steer for Mr. Burton's, the sole inhabitant of the 
sniall bay close by, whore we hope for supper. 

Between onr landing and ihe snp]ier, two luturs 



BCENE Fi;OM HT. CJIAJiLliB MOUNTAIN. 221 

passed, during which C painted the Kip Van Winkle 

berg, and 1 ascended the mountain. Crossing a little 
dell to the west of the house, through which flow a 
couple of tinkling rills bordered with rank grass, and 
sheeted with flowers white and fragrant, I struck the 
foot of a small glacier, or chasm filled with perpetual 
snow, and commenced the ascent. At first I was 
pleased with the notion of climbing this rner-dc-neige, 
and went up right merrily, crossing and recrossing, 
stepping sharjjly into the thawing surface in order 
to secure a good foothold. But as I wound my way 
up the cold track, beginning to bo walled in by savage 
crags, it seemed so lonesome, and sounded so hollow 
below, and looked so far down and steep behind me, 
that I became suspicious, and afraid, and timidly crept 
out upon its icy edge, and leaped to the solid cliff. By 
this time I was too warm with a heavy overcoat, and left 
it hanging upon a rock against my return. Cold and 
windy as it was, I was glowing with heat when I 
reached the top. 

The prospect was a new one to me, although long 
accustomed to mountain views, and more impressive 
than any thing of the kind I can remember. Rather 
more than half of the great circle was filled with the 
ocean ; the remainder was Labrador, a most desolate 



222 SCENE EllOM ST. ClIAllLES MOUNTAIN. 

extent of small rocky mountains, faintly tinted here and 
there with a greenish gray, and frequently slanting down 
to lakes and inlets of the sea. It may be said that 
Neptune, setting his net of blue waters along this 
solitary land, sprung it at last and caught it full of 
these hony hills, so hopelessly hard and barren, that 
he, poor old follow, appears to have thought it never 
worth his trouble to look after either net or game. 
Quite in the interior were a few summits higher than 
the St. Charles, the one upon which I was standing. 
The sun was looking red and fiery through long lines 
and bars of dun clouds, and shed his rays in streams 
that bathed the stern and gloomy -waste with wonder- 
ful brightness. Seaward, the prospect exceeds any power 
of mine at description, I have no expectation of wit- 
nessing again any such magnificence in that field of 
nature. Poets and painters will hereafter behold it, 
and feel how suggestive it is of facts and truths, past, 
present, and to come. The coast — that irregular and 
extended lino far north, and far away south and west, 
upon which the ocean and the continent embrace and 
wrestle — with its reefs and islets, inlets, bays, and capes, 
waves breaking into snowy foam, twilight shadows 
streaming out upon the sea from behind the headlands, 
and the lights of sunset glancing through the gorges and 



SCENE FliOM ST. CHAKLES MOUNTAIN, 223 

valleys of the shore, all combined to weave a fringe of 
glory both for land and ocean. The sky over the ocean 
was of great extent, and gave a wonderful breadth and 
vastness to the water. There was truly " the face of 
the deep." And a most awful, yet a glorious counte- 
nance it was, and most exquisitely complexioned, re- 
flecting faintly both the imagery and the hues of heaven, 
the bright, the purple and the blue, the saffron and the 
rosy. Belle Isle, with its steep shores reddening with 
light, lay in the south, lovely to look upon but desolate 
in reality, and often fatal to the mariner. Looking 
farther south and southwest, a dark line lay along the 
sky — the coast of Newfoundland. I was lookirig up the 
straits of Belle Isle. All the sea in that quarter, under 
the last sunlight, shone like a pavement of amethyst, 
over which all the chariots of the earth might have 
rolled, and all its cavalry wheeled with ample room. 
Wonderful to behold ! it was only a fair field for the 
steepled icebergs, a vast metropolis in ice, pearly white 
and red as roses, glittering in the sunset. Solemn, still, 
and half-celestial scene ! In its presence, cities, tented 
fields, and fleets dwindled into toys. I said aloud, but 
low : " The City of God ! The sea of glass ! the plains 
of heaven " ! The sweet notes of a wood-thrush, now 
lost in the voices of the wind, and then returning 



224 SCENE FEOM ST. CHARLES MOUNTAIN, 

with soft murmurs of the surf, recalled me from the 
reverie into which I had lapsed unconsciously, and I 
descended carefully the front of the mountain until I 
stood just above the portal of the lofty cavern into which 
we had sailed. The fishing-boats in a neighboring cove, 
moored for the night, appeared like corks upon the dark 
water, and Burton's house like the merest box. He was 
just ashore from his salmon-nets, and was tossing the 
shining fishes from his boat to the rocks. I counted 
seven. 

Coming round upon the northern slope, I was 
tempted by the mossy footing to try the reindeer 
method, and went bounding to the right and left until 
I was brought up waist-deep in a thicket of crisp and 
fragrant evergreens. When I say thicket, do not fancy 
any ordinary cluster of shrubs, such as is common, for 
example, among the Catskills, This, of which I am 
speaking, and which is found spotting these cold hill- 
sides, is a perfect forest in miniature, covering a space 
twenty or thirty feet across, compact as a phalanx of 
soldiery, and from three feet to six inches high. In fact, 
it reminds me of a train-band standing straight and trim, 
and bristling with bayonets. The little troop looked as 
if it was marching up the mountain, the taller ones in 
front, and the little inch-fellows following in the rear, all 



SCENE FROM ST. CHARLES MOUNTAIN. 225 

keeping step and time. There are gentlemen on the 
Hudson and around our cities, that would give a thou- 
sand dollars for such a tiny little wood. It is an ex- 
quisite curiosity, and must excel the dwarf shrubbery 
of the Japanese. The little trees — no mere yearhngs 
playing forest — are venerable with moss and lichens, 
and bear the symbols of suffering and experience. All 
are well-developed, complete trees, mimicking the forms 
and the ways of majestic firs. The lower boughs droop 
with a sad, mournful air, and their pointed tops look up 
into the sunshine and down upon the minute shrubbery 
below, with the gloomy repose of dark, old pines. It 
made me laugh. As I waded through the pigmy woods, 
running my fingers through the loftier tops, as I would 
run them through the hair of a curly-headed child, and 
stepping over hills and dales of green forest, I was 
highly amused, both at the little woodlands and the 
moral of the thing. Cutting an armful of the sweet- 
scented branches, and thinking of the children at home 
as I dinted the mossy pincushions bright as worsted- 
work all over the ground, I hastened to regain my coat, 
and get down to the fisherman's. The painter soon 
came in, when we sat down to an excellent supper of 
tea and fried salmon, and presently set sail by moon- 
light. 

10* 



226 PAINTING THE lilP VAN WINKLE BERG. 



Among the incidents of painting the berg, C~ 



related one of some novelty. It was in deep water, 
but close to the shore, and so nicely poised that it 
was evidently standing tiptoe-like on some point, and 
vibrating largely at every discharge of ice. Near by as 
it was, ho could paint from the shore with security — a 
rare chance in summer. A heavier fall than usual 
from the part fronting the land was followed by corre- 
spondingly large vibrations, leaving the berg, after it 
had settled to rest, leaning toward the sea with new 
exposures of ice. Among these was an isolated mass 
i-esembling a superbly fashioned vase. Quite ajjart from 
the parent berg, and close to the rocks, it first appeared 
slowly rising out of the sea like some work of enchant- 
ment, ascending higher and higher until it stood, in the 
dark waters before him, some twenty feet in height — a 
finely proportioned vase, pure as pearl or alabaster, and 
shining with the -tints of emerald and sapphire through- 
out its manifold flutings and decorations. It was act- 
ually startling. As it was ascending from the sea, the 
water in the Titanic vase, an exquisite 23ale green, 
spouted in all directions from the corrugated brim, and 
the waves leaped wp and covered its pedestal and stem 
with a drift of sparkling foam. While in the process of 
painting this almost magical and beautiful apparition, 



THE ICK-VASE, AND THE llETUUN BY MOONLIGHT. 227 

nearly one half of the bowl burst off with the crack of a 
rifle, and fell with a heavy plunge into the sea. How 
much in olden times would have been made of this ! In 
the twilight of truth it is easy to see that there is but 
a step, an easy and a willing step, from plain facts into 
wild and fanciful forms of superstition. On our way 
back to harbor, wo passed the Kip Van Winkle iceberg, 
and saw his broken goblet pale and spectral in the moon- 
light. How lengthy will be the slumbers of the ven- 
erable wanderer beneath the shadows of the mountain, 
there is none but the hospitable Burtons to report. 
For their sakcs, whose salmon-nets his ponderous move- 
ments along shore have greatly disturbed, it is to be 
hoped he will speedily perish and be buried where he is, 
or wake up and be off to sea with the dignity befitting 
an iceberg of so much character. 



CHAPTEE XLVI. 

AFTER OUE LAST ICEBEEG.— THE ISLES.— TWILIGHT BEAUTIES OF 
ICEBEEGS.— MIDNIGHT ILLUMINATION. 

Feiday, July 15. This is another of the summer 
days of Labrador, with a soft, southerly wind, tempting 
one to ramble in spite of musquitoes and black flies, 
which, though few, are uncommonly pestilent. The 
painter is sleeping from very weariness, and I am loiter- 
ing about these cliffs, note-book in hand, in a drowsy 
state, for a similar reason. These long days and late 
hours about headlands and icebergs are attended with 
their pains as well as pleasures. From .the tenor of my 
pages one would think that all was joyous and interest- 
ing. Let him reflect, that for his sake I record the joy- 
ous and the interesting, and pass by the dull and the 
vexatious. I flit from frowning cffff to cliff where the 
surf thunders and Leviathan spends his holiday among 
the capelin, and linger in the sunshine and shadow of 



AFTER OUR LAST ICEBERG, 229 

an iceberg, the clioicest among fifty, but give you but a 
suspicion of the common things between. The spark- 
ling points of the life of this novel voyage are for the 
reader's eye ; the chill and the weariness, and the sea- 
sickness, and the mass of things, lumpish and brown in 
" the light of common day," are for that tomb of the 
Capulets away back in the fields of one's own memory. 
But to return : this kind of life begins to wear upon us, 
to wear upon the nerves, and suggests the importance of 
keeping dull and still awhile. 

I find myself looking towards home, looking that way 
over the sea from the hill-tops, and rather dreading the 
rough and tumble and chances of the journey. I regret 
that time will not permit a continuation of the voyage, 
at least as far as Sandwich Bay, where the mountains 
are now covered with snow. We shall visit, this after- 
noon and evening, our last iceberg, and mainly for some 
experiments with lights. The rocks here, among which 
I saunter, are a kind of gallery tufted with wild grass 
and herbage, up to which a few goats climb from the 
dwellings near our vessel, and upon a patch of which I 
lounge and scribble. If there were any spirit in me, the 
fine prospect, although somewhat familiar, would awaken 
some fresh thoughts and feelings. One thought comes 
swelling up from the sluggish depths — it is this : There 



230 AFTER OUR LAST ICEBERG. 

is a fascination in these northern seas, with their ices and 
their horrid shores. The arctic voyagers feel and act 
under its impulse. I can understand their readiness to 
return to polar scenes. 

Late in the afternoon, sailing up the hay, after an 
ugly iceherg of no particular shape or remarkahle at- 
traction. In New York Bay, it would be thought a 
most splendid thing, and so indeed it would be ; but here, 
in contrast with the great berg of Belle Isle "water, and 
many others, it is a small matter, a harmless and dull 
specimen of its kind. Its merit is its convenience. 
And yet, let me tell you, we pause in our approach at 
a distance of seventy yards. I am not willing to go 
any nearer upon this, the cliff side. The agent, Mr. 
Bendle, told us this morning, that when he first came 
from England to these shores, he was fond of playing 
about icebergs, and once rowed a boat under a lofty arch, 
passing quite through the berg, a thing that he could not 
now be persuaded to attempt. The wind blows rather 
strongly, and we lie to the leeward of the ice, rolling 
quite too much for painting. There is no accounting for 
these currents which flow in upon, and flow away from 
these bergs. The submarine ice so interferes with the 
upper and lower streams that the surface water rolls and 
whirls in a manner upon which you cannot calculate. 



THE ISLES. 231 

Under the leeward here, one would naturally suppose 
that the current would set toward the ice, and req[uire an 
effort on our part to keep away. The contrary is the 
case. Two good oars arc busy in order to hold us up to 
our present position. The wind and the swell increase, 
and so we make sail and scud to some small islands dis- 
tant half a mile. We moor our boat under the shelter 
of the rocks and clamber up, look around upon the ruins 
washed and rusty, and take a run. 

At seven o'clock I sit down on the warm side of a 
crag, and look about with the intention of seeing what 
there is worth looking at in a spot to which one might 
flee who was tired of seeing too much. Upon the word 
of a quiet man, I find myself in the very middle of the 
beautiful, and ought to be thankful that we are here, 
and wish that we might be sufiered to come again. And 
what is there here ? Wise men have written volumes 
over less. I do not know but here are groups of the 
South Sea Isles in miniature. For example, separated 
from us by a narrow gulf of water, and such clear, bright 
water, is an islet with a ridge, a kind of half-moon crest, 
carpeted with olive-tinted moss, over which the lone sun 
pours a stream of almost blinding light. What glory 
the God of nature sheds upon these rugged outworks of 
the earth ! The painter that could faithfully repeat 



232 THE ISLES. 

upon canvas this one effect of light would leave Claude 
and Cole, and the like, far enough behind to be forgotten. 
The wind is lulling ; the sun touches and seems to burn 
the crest of the island opposite, after eight o'clock. 

C is finishing a sketch ; the Captain and "I have 

been hunting the sea-pigeons' nests, a pair of which keep 
flying off and on ; and now the men are making the boat 
ready for our twilight and evening play around "the 
ugly iceberg." How glad the poor little family of ducks 
must be, from whose home we have driven them, that we 
are going away. They have been pretending to swim off, 
and yet have managed to keep back near enough to watch 
us over the shoulder, ever since we arrived. Timid, 
cunning feUows, how much they appear to know ! A 
stone disperses them, some to the wing and some to the 
bottom ; and now here they are again, all riding the 
same swell, and seeming to swim away while they watch 
our motions, continually turning their slick, black heads 
quickly over the shoulder. 

If you would look upon the perfectly white and pure, 
see an iceberg between you and the day's last red 
heavens. If you would behold perfect brilliancy, gaze 
at the crest of an iceberg cutting sharply into those 
same red heavens. To all appearance it will burn and 
scintillate like a crown of costly gems. In all its 



TWILIGHT BEAUTIES. 233 

notched, zigzag and flowing outline, it palpitates and 
glitters as if it were bordered with the very lightning. 
He that watches the Andean clouds of a July sunset, 
and beholds them rimmed, now with pink and rose-hues, 
and now with golden fire, will see the edges of an iceberg 
when it stands against the sky glowing with the yellow 
and orange blaze of sunset. We go to the skies for pure 
azure ; you will find it at twilight in these wonderful 
Greenland ices. I am looking now upon what mimics 
the ruins of a tower, every block of which, in one light, 
gleams like crystal ; in another, as if they had been 
quarried from the divinest sky. Cloud-like and smoke- 
like, they look light as the cerulean air. This, as I have 
said already, is the eifect of perfect white seen through 
deep, transparent shadow. True azure is the necessary 
result. More than enough, it would seem, has been said 
of these forms and colors. But really the eye never 
wearies of these arctic palaces so grandly corniced and 
pillared ; these sculptures so marvellously draped. As 
we gaze at them, even in this meagre and common berg, 
under this delicate light veiled with the dusk of evening, 
they are astonishing in their beauty. I look at them 
with joyful emotions, with wonder and with love. Why 
do they not rustle with a silken, satin rustle ? 

After dark, we sailed round to the northern ex- 



234 MJDNJCiJi'r ILLUMll^ATJON. 

trcmily, where Iroin the lowncss of the ice it was more 
Kiife to approaeli it, ami dropped Bail iu order to experi- 
ment with the blue lights furnished us by the governor. 
Kowiiig up qiiito closely, within eight yards perhaps, 

C , wlu) Htood ready upon the bow, fired a conple. 

In tho smoke and glare " we were a ghastly crew," while 
the berg was rather obscured than beautified. Wo then 
rowed round to tho side where the current was sotting 
rapidly towards tlie ice, and launched a flaming tar- 
barrel. With a stone for ballast, it kept upright, and 
iloated ill line style directly into the fiice of tho berg — 
an irregular clilf t)f sixty feet, pierced with caverns. It 
was kept for some time under a succession of the bright- 
est flashes of pink light. Upon one slope of tlio swells 
the slieaf of red flames gushing from the barrel would be 
turned from, on tho otlicr, toward the ice. Thus tho 
whole eastern front was kept changing from light to 
darkness, from darkness to light. As the brightness was 
flung back and forth from tho sea to the berg, and from 
the berg to the sea, tho cfl'cct was exceedingly novel and 
beautiful. When the swells bore the full-blown torcb 
into a cave, and its ruddy tongues were licking the green, 
glassy arches, avo hoisted sail and went gaily bounding 
ba.ek (o liarbor. For a Avhile, the fire shot its fitful 
rays over the lonely waters, and gleamed " like a star in 



MIDNIGHT ILLUMINATION. 235 

tlic midst of tlic ocean." At last it was qucuclicd in the 
distant gloom. A ghostly figure with dim outline was 
all tliat was visihle, and our work and play with icebergs 
were over — over forever. It was midnight and past, when 
Ave dropped sails alongside the vessel, after a quick run, 
enlivened, as we entered the harbor, by a sudden display 
of the northern-liirht. 



CHAPTEK XLVII. 

FAEEWELL TO BATTLE HAEBOE.— THE STEAITS OP BELLE ISLE.— 
LABEADOE LANDSCAPES.— THE WEECK OF THE FISHEEMEK 

Satueday, July 16, " Once more upon the waters, yet 
once more." We were awakened from sound slumbers by 
the footsteps and voices of the men above, making ready 
for sea. It was a pleasant sound, and the sunshine 
streaming down into the cabin was welcome, intelligence 
of the brightness of the morning. We dressed in time to 
get on deck, and wave a final adieu to our friends, from 
whom we had formally parted yesterday, as well as from 
Mr. and Mrs. Bendle, of whose hospitality we bear away 
agreeable recollections. 

And now the broad Atlantic is before, and Cape 
St. Louis, its waters and its ices, behind the intervening 
islands. The signal staffs of Battle and Cariboo Islands 
are yet visible from the high rocks that overlook that 
busy nest of fishermen, with its steepled church and par- 



FAREWELL TO BATTLE HARBOR. 237 

sonage. God's love abido with the man that lives there. 



and ministers to the religious wants of men, women, and 
children, who have little else than respect and affection 
to make his home comfortable and happy. While kind 
hearts, and none kinder than those of the Esquimaux, 
throb beneath rough manners and uncomely raiment, 
there are wicked spirits there, no doubt, as everywhere, 
that hurt and hinder, and never help, and render the 
solitary path among the rocks insufferably lonesome and 
painful. The remembrances of famous and beloved kin- 
dred, of old and honored Cambridge, and of the quiet 
rectory under the Malvern Hills, are much to a cultivated 
and sensitive nature ; the bliss that flows from daily 
duties cheerfully done with an habitual resignation to the 
will of God, and with hopes of glory in the future, is 
more than recollections, to a heart whose motive powers 
are Christian faith and love. But amid all the sweetest 
memories, and the brightest hopes, and the comforting 
satisfaction of believing well and doing well, it is a fear- 
ful thing for cultivated man to toil in solitude and de- 
privation. Although heaven is above him, and his path- 
way certainly upward, yet a double portion of all those 
good and perfect gifts coming from above, be awarded to 
the man whose parish is in Labrador ; who, when he 
leaves the still companionship of books for the toils of the 



238 THE STRAITS OF BELLE ISLE. 

gospel from door to door, must take down either Ms oars 
or his snow-shoes, and sweep over the snow-drift or the 
billow. 

We now beat slowly up the straits of Belle Isle for the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, hoping to pass these dangerous 
waters by daylight. They are very fair to look upon at 
this time of day, studded in all directions with those shin- 
ing palaces of ice seen from the top of St. Charles Moun- 
tain. Tlie coast hills have a graceful outhne, and slant 
quite smoothly down, abutting on the sea in low broken 
cliffs. They resemble the hills of Maine and Canada 
after April thaws, while the heavier snow-drifts yet re- 
main, and the yellow brown sod is patched with faint 
green. Forsaken country ! if that can be called forsaken 
which appears never to have been possessed. Doleful and 
neglected land ! Chilly solitude keeps watch over your 
unvisited fields, and frightens away the glory of the fruit- 
ful seasons. The loving sunshine and the healing warmth 
wander hand in hand tenderly abroad, calling upon the 
lowly moss to wake up and blossom, and to the tiny, 
half-smothered, flattened willows to rise and walk along 
tlio brook banks. But the white-coated police of winter, 
the grim snow-drifts, watch on the craggy battlements 
of desolation, and luxuriance and life peep from their 
(hirk colls only \o sink back pale and spiritless. To a 



LABRADOR LANDSCAPES. 239 

traveller there is real beauty on the tawny desert ami the 
wild prairie ; but there is to nie an awful louesomcncss 
and gloom in these houseless wastes where the eye with 
an insane perverscness will keep looking for cottage 
smokes and pasture fences. I think of landscapes drying 
off after the flood. 

The bergs are in part behind us, and wc are rocking 
on the easy swells of llenly Harbor, where wo can glean 
no more signs of human " toil and trouble " than arc just 
enough to tio a name to, and quite a pretty name too. 
The lazy sails flap idly in the sunshine, and the cold air 
cuts with the sharpness of a frosty October morning. I 
sit in the July heat with overcoat, and cloak over the over- 
coat, woollen mittens and woollen stockings, and with 
cold feet at that. And yet this miserable shore has, in 
its cod and salmon, attractions for thousands of people 
during the transient summer. Even the long and almost 
arctic winter with its seals and foxes detains hundreds. 
But, as a fisherman told me one day, while tossing upon 
the dock with his pitchfork a boat-load of cod, " It is a 
poor trade." It is a little trying to patience to be rolling 
in this idle way, with the creak of spars and the rattling 
of blocks and rigging, especially as a breeze has been 
winging the blue water for an hour not more than a milo 
ahead of us. Wo, do move a little, just a little, enough 



240 THE "WRECK OF THE FISHERMEN. 

to keep the hope breathing that we shall soon move off 
with reasonable speed. 

The current is almost a river stream^ and we are drift- 
ing rapidly, which is not a pleasant thing to be thinking 
about, with these waters scouring the very banks, and a 
short cable. I am gazing back upon the southern point 
of Belle Isle with a mournful interest. It was only the 
night of the second, the same night we ran into Twillin- 
gate to escape a gale, that a vessel was lost there, and all, 
or nearly all, on board perished. At this moment there 
is a faint line of white, but not a murmur. All looks 
quiet there and peaceful, as if the lion was going up to 
lie down with the lamb. 



CO 
o ■ 




CHAPTER XLVIII. 

SiCETCniNO THE PASSING BEKGS.— Till'; STORY OF AN ICEBEnO. 

The painter is a model of industry, sketching and 
painting the bergs as we pass them. They arc now clus- 
tered on the northern horizon, with a few exceptions. 
We have Lccn for some time near one, out of which 
might he cut an entire Mock of Broadway buildings, evi- 
dently presenting the same upper surface that it had 
when it slid as a glacier from the polar shore. If such is 
the fact, we infer that in its long glacial experience it 
could not have remained long near any mass of earth 
higher than itself, for there is not a stone or particle of 
dust or earthy stain upon it. It is as spotless as a cloud 
" after the tempest." How beautiful is the sentiment of 
it ! It carries the imagination away to those heavenly 
walls depicted in Revelation, and sends it back upon the 

track of its own story. 
11 



242 . THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 

The story of an iceberg ! yes, indeed ; and a most 
wonderful tale would it be, could it be truthfully written. 
It would run up into, and become lost in the story of the 
great glaciers of Greenland ; the half of which science it- 
self has not learned, profoundly as it has penetrated the 
mysteries of the Alpine glaciers. 

There are valleys reaching from the interior to the 
coast, filled with glaciers of great depth and breadth, 
which move forward with an imperceptible but regular 
motion. The continent, as one might call Greenland, 
does not shed the bulk of its central waters in fluid rivers, 
but discharges them to the ocean in soHd, crystalline, slow- 
ly progressing streams. They flow, or rather march, with 
irresistible, mighty force, and far-resounding footsteps, 
crossing the shore line, a perpetual procession of block- 
like masses, flat or diversified with hill and hoUow on the 
top, advancing upon the sea until too deeply immersed 
longer to resist the buoyant power and pressure of the 
surrounding waters, when they break upwards, and float 
suspended in the vast oceanic abyss. The van of the gla- 
cial host, previously marked ofl" by fissures into ranks, 
rushes from the too close embrace of its new element, and 
wheels away, an iceberg — the glistening planet of the sea, 
whose mazy, tortuous orbit none can calculate but Him 
who maps the unseen currents of the main. 



THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 243 

When and where, on the lengthy Greenland coast, 
did this huge block make the grand exchange of ele- 
ments ? Which, if any of these great buildings " not 
made with hands," now whitening the blue fields of Nep- 
tune, followed or preceded it ? What have been its sol- 
emn rounds ? Through v/hat winters has it slept, and 
caught the snows upon the folds of its sculptured draper- 
ies ? How many summers has it bared its spotless bosom 
to the sun and rains ? What nights of auroral splendors 
have glassed their celestial countenance in its shining mir- 
rors ? What baths and vases of blue water have opened 
their pure depths to moon and stars ? What torrents 
and cascades have murmured in its glassy chasms, crystal 
grottoes, Alpine dells ? And who shall count its battles 
with the waves and tempests, when with the surf about 
its shoulders and among its locks, and the clouds around 
its brow, it stood far up from the unsounded valleys of 
ocean " tiptoe on the mountain top " ? 

In the defiles and gorges of the Arctic coast are pro- 
digious accumulations of ice — the congelation of small 
streams flowing from the adjacent mountains — the glaciers 
of the coast range, in short. These gradually encroach 
upon, and overhang the sea ; and are continually breaking 
off, from the undermining of the waves which beat at their 
base. Such is the depth of water, that the hugest ava- 



244 THE STORY OF AN ICEBEKC. 

lanclie of ice can fall with, safety to itself, and float 
away, 

Wlien, and in wliat bay or inlet, may this Great 
Northern liave been launched ? Out of what gloomy 
fiord may have rolled the billows, after its icy fastenings 
were loosed, and it slid, with the thunder of an earth- 
quake, down its slippery ways, and plunged into the black 
deep ? 

Until science have her beaten pathway over polar 
waves and hills, and measure the rain-falls and the snow- 
falls, and the freezings of the one and the compactings 
of the other, the story of the glacier and the iceberg, in 
their native land and seas, will be left, in part, to the 
imagination — a faculty, after all, that will ever deal with 
those wonderful ices about, as satisfactorily as the faculty 
that judges according to the sense, as Bishop Leighton 
calls the mere scientific faculty. The truth of this is 
illustrated by the very icebergs about us. Emphatically 
as they speak to the naturalist with his various instru- 
mentalities, they speak, at the same moment, with mar- 
vellous eloc[uence to the poet and the painter. There are 
forces, motions, and forms, voices, beauties, and a senti- 
ment, which escape the touch of science, and are scarcely 
caught by the subtle, poetic mind. Icebergs, to the 
imaginative soul, have a kind of individuality and life. 



THE STOEY OF AN ICEBEllG. 245 

They startle, frigliten, awe ; they astonish, excite, amuse, 
delight and fascinate ; clouds, mountains and structures, 
angels, demons, animals and men spring to the view of 
the beholder. They are a favorite playground of the 
lines, surfaces and shapes of the whole world, the heavens 
above, the earth and the waters under : of their sounds, 
motions and colors also. These are the poet's and the 
painter's fields, more than they are the fields of the mere 
naturalist, much as they are his. Do not these fifty 
bergs, in sight from any crag frowning in its iron strength 
above the surf, speak more a living language to the crea- 
tive, than to the mensural faculty 7 Let us sec. 

They have a daily experience, and a current history 
more remarkable now than ever. Whatever may have 
been the wonders of their conception, birth and growth ; 
however lengthy and devious their voyage, they are present 
in these strange seas, in these tepid waters and soft airs, 
to undergo their last, fatal changes, and dissolve forever 
into their final tomb. There are fifty icebergs, more or 
less. Apparently similar in appearance, yet each differs 
widely from all others. Exhibiting similar phenomena, 
yet each has complexions, movements, sounds and won- 
ders of its own. If we choose, though, to add to the per- 
formances of to-day, those of yesterday and to-morrow, 
we shall find that the experience of any one berg closely 



246 TIIK HTOKY OK AN lOKBliniti. 

resembles ihiil; of ull. Tlio entire circle of its looks and 
doinj^s corresponds with the circle of nearly every other 
"berg, and so of ull together, diflering merely in the mat- 
tor of time — as to 'ioIk'H the changes take place. The de- 
scription npon wliicli I will venture, and which might be 
gleaned from the foregoing pages, is, therefore, strictly 
true, except that the phases and accidents arc supposed 
to occur in rapid succession. In a word, what you would 
behold in all of these lifty, within twenty-four hours, you 
are to fancy of one, in the course of an afternoon. 

I have before me, in my mind's eye, the Windsor 
Castle berg, fresh fioui the north, and the Great Castle 
berg, of nolle Isle water, which it entered early last May, 
and n,s larjve, at the iime of its arrival, as both of them 
at present coinl)inod. And so 1 am looking at a verita- 
ble berg of Capo St. Louis, small, though, in comparison 
with the berg of Cape St. Francis, "a vast cathedral of 
dazzling white ice, with a front of 250 feet perpendicular 
from the sea," visited by the Bishop of Newfoundland in 
the sunmier of 1853. 

1 will describe, hrst, the figure of the berg. It is a 
ctMubinalion of Alp, castle, mosque, Parther^on and cathe- 
dral. It lias peaks and slopes ; clifts, crags, chasms and 
caverns ; lakes, streams and waterfalls. It has towers, 
battlements and portals. It has minarets, domes and 



THE STOllY OF AN ICEBEllG. 247 

steeples ; roofs and gables ; balustrades and balconies ; 
fronts, sides and interiors ; doors, windows and porches ; 
steps and entrances ; columns, pilasters, capitals and en- 
tablatures ; frieze, architrave and cornice ; arches, clois- 
ters, niches, statuary and countless decorations ; flutings, 
corrugations, carvings, panels of glassy polish and in the 
rough ; Greek, Koman, Gothic, Saracenic, Pagan, Sav- 
age. It is crested with blades and needles ; heaped here 
and there with ruins, blocks and bowlders, splintered and 
crumbled masses. This precipice has a fresh, sharp frac- 
ture ; yonder front, with its expanse of surface beautifully 
diversified with sculptured imagery and other ornament, 
has the polish of ivory — the glassy polish of mirrors — the 
enamel of sea-shells — the fierce brightness of burnished 
steel — the face of rubbed marble — of smoothest alabaster 
— of pearl — porcelain — lily-white flesh — lily-white wax — 
the -flesh-finish of beauty done in "the spotless stone of 
Italy. This, though, is but the iceberg of the air ; the 
head and crown only of the iceberg of the deep sea. 

From the figure of the berg, I will come to describe 
an important feature of its life and history : its motion ; 
not its movement from place to place, but upon its cen- 
tre — its rotation and vibration. Where the berg is not 
grounded — in which case it only beats and sways to and 
fro, vibrating through the arc of a circle like an inverted 



24o THE STOKY OF AN ICEBERG. 

pendulum — when it is not grounded, it must be supposed 
to hang suspended at the surface — all but the topmost 
part — just binder the surface of the ocean, very much as 
a cloud, a great white thunder-head, hangs suspended in 
the upper air. Balanced around its heart, far down in 
the deep, and in its cold solidity " dry as summer dust " 
— poised upon its centre with perfect exactness, it is 
evident that the loss of a single ton of ice shifts that cen- 
tre, shifts it an ounce-notch on the bar of the mighty 
scale, destroys the equilibrium, and subjects the whole to 
the necessity of some small movement in order to regain 
its rest. When, instead of one ton, thousands fall oif, it 
sets a rolling the whole cliftcd and pinnacled circumfer- 
ence. 

And here begins that exhibition of novel forms and 
shapes, and of awful force, and the sublimity of stupen- 
dous masses in motion, that so impresses, awes, startles, 
and fascinates the beholder. A berg in repose, wondrous 
as it is to him that dares to linger in its presence, differs 
from itself in action, as a hero in his sleep differs from 
himself upon the field of battle. 

With regard to the motions of the berg, it must be 
borne in mind, that, from the fact of its centre being not 
on a level with the surftice of the sea, but at depths 
below, they are quite different from what might at first 



THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 249 

be imagined. A rough globe, revolving upon its axis, 
with but a small portion of its bulk, say a twelfth, above 
the water ; or, better still, the hub and spokes merely 
of a common wagon wheel, slowly rolling back and forth, 
will serve for illustration. The uppermost spoke, in its 
vibrations to the right and left, describes a line of some 
extent along the surface, not unlike an upright stick 
moving to and fro, and gradually rising and sinking as 
it moves. In this movement back and forth, the two 
adjacent spokes will be observed to emerge and disappear 
correspondingly. In this v^ay, a berg of large diameter, 
instead of falling over upon the sea like a wall or pre- 
cipice, appears to advance bodily, slowly sinking as it 
comes, with a slightly increasing inclination toward you. 
In its backward roll, this is reversed. It seems to be 
retreating, slowly rising as it floats away, with a slightly 
increasing inclination from you. In these grand vibra- 
tions, projecting points and masses of opposite sides 
correspondingly emerge and disappear, rising apparently 
straight up out of the sea on this side, going down as 
straight on the other. 

From the figure and motion of the berg, I come to 
describe the motive j)Ower, rather the explosive power, 
through which the delicate balance is destroyed, and mo- 
tion made a necessity in order to gain again equilibrium 
11* 



250 THE STOKY OF AN ICEBEKG. 

and rest. Whatever may be the latent heat of ice, is a 
question for the professed naturahst. Two things are 
evident to the unlearned observer : an iceberg is as solid 
as ivory, or marble from the lowest depths of a quarry, 
and cold apparently as any substance on the earth can 
bo made. This compact and perfectly frozen body, im- 
mersed in the warm seas of summer, and warmer atmos- 
phere, finds its entire outside, and especially that portion 
of it which is exposed to the July sun, expanding under 
the influence of the penetrating heat. The scrutiny of 
science would, no doubt, find it certain that this heat, in 
some measure, darts in from all sides in converging rays 
to the very heart. The expanding power of heat be- 
comes at leogth an explosive force, and throws off", with 
all the violence and suddenness of gunpowder, in suc- 
cessive flakes, portions of the surface. The berg, then, 
bursts from expansion, as when porcelain cracks with 
sharp report, suddenly and unequally heated on the 
winter stove. Judge of the report when the porcelain 
of a great clijff cracks and falls, or when the entire berg 
is blasted asunder by the subtle, internal fire of the 
summer sun ! If you would hear thunders, or whole 
broadsides and batteries of the heaviest ordnance, come 
to the iceberg then. 

Speaking incidentallv of noises, reminds me of the 



THE STOKY OF AN ICEBERG. 251 

hues and tints of the iceberg. Solomon in all his glory- 
was not clothed like the flowers of the field. Would you 
behold this berg apparelled with a glory that eclipses 
all floral beauty, and makes you think, not only of the 
clouds of heaven at sunrise and sunset, but of heaven 
itself, you must come to it at sunrise and at sunset. 
Then, too, you would hear its voices and its melodies, 
the deep and mournful murmuring of the surf in its 
caverns. Hark ! In fancy I hear them now, half thun- 
der, and half the music of some mighty organ. 

And this reminds me of the sea, which shares with 
the iceberg something of the glory and the power. In 
the first place, from the white brightness of the ice, the 
eye is tuned to such a high key, or so stimulated and be- 
dazzled, that the ocean is not only dark by contrast, but 
dark in reality. It is purple, so deep as to amount al- 
most to blackness — an evening violet I would call it, a 
complexion magnificent and rich exceedingly in the blaze 
of noon, and at late and early hours when the skies are 
full of brilliant colors. What heightens the efiect of 
this dye of the ocean, is the pale emerald water around 
the berg, and in which it floats as in a vast bath, the 
loveliness, clarity and divine beauty of which no language 
can paint in a way to kindle the proper feeling and 
emotion. From ten to fifty feet in breadth, it encircles 



252 THE STORY OF AN ICEBEKG, 

the berg, a zone or girdle of sky-green, that most deli- 
cate tint of the sunset heavens, and lies, or plays with a 
kind of serpent play, between the greenish white ice and 
the violet water, as the bright deeps of air lie beyond the 
edge of a blue-black cloud. There is no perceptible 
blending, but a sharp line which follows, between the 
bright and the dark, the windings of the berg, across 
which you may, if you have the temerity, row the bow 
of your whale-boat, and gaze down, down the fearfully 
transparent abyss, until the dim ice-cliifs and the black 
deeps are lost in each other's awful embrace, 

I have spoken of the figure, motion, and the breaking 
of the iceberg, incidentally mentioning its sounds, its 
colors, and the surrounding waters. You are now ready 
to go with us, and spend the afternoon about it. Early 
in the morning, and for the last hour, all but its heights 
and peaks has been wrapped in cloud-like fog. That, 
you discover, is thinning off, and will presently all pass 
away. The breeze is fresh from the north, and we will 
sail down upon the north-eastern side, until we have it 
between us and the 3 o'clock sun. We are upon sound- 
ings, and, as we glide from the broad sunny tract into the 
shadow of the berg, the ocean should be green, a deep 
green. But we have been sailing with the white ice in 
our eyes, and you see the ocean a dark purple. The 



THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 253 

captain drops sail, and sets the men at their oars. As 
the current sets back from the berg — the reverse of the 
current below — you notice that they arc pulling slowly^ 
but steadily forward without any perceptible advance. 
We are distant a good hundred yards, as near again as 
we ought to be for safety. But this is the jiosition for 
the painter, and it will be the care of the captain to keep 
it, the required time, as nearly as ]50ssible. 

As the broad roller lifts us lightly and gracefully, and 
leaves us sinking on its after-slope, how majestic is the 
silent march of it, the noiseless flight of it ! But look ! 
— look ! — as it flees in all its imposing breadth of dark- 
ness, see the great, green star upon its breast — a spangle 
green as grass, as the young spring grass in the sunshine, 
gleaming like some skylight of the deep, some emerald 
window in the dome of the sea-palace, letting up the 
splendor. What do you suppose that is ? It is ice, a 
point of the berg pricking up into the illuminated sur- 
iace and reflecting the light. You will understand that 
better, perhaps, by and by. But wait an instant. 
Now ! — now ! — Beauty strikes the billow with her 
magic rod, and, presto — change ! — all is glittering 
green. A thousand feet of purple, cloud-like wave 
passes, in the twinkling of an eye, into the brightness 
of an emerald gem, and thus rolls up and smites the 



254 THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 

iceberg. And thus, like night perpetually bursting into 
tbe splendid noon, roll up tbe billows, and strike the 
minutes of the hour. How beautiful is the transfigura- 
tion ! See them split upon this angle of the castle ; 
and as they run along the walls, with the whispery, 
hissing sound of smoothly sliding waters, mark how high 
they wash, and sweep them with their snowy banners, 
here and there bending over, and curling into long scrolls 
of molten glass, which burst in dazzling foam, and 
plunge in many an avalanche of sparkling jewelry. 
Into the great porch of yonder Parthenon they rush 
in crowds, and thunder their applause upon the steps. 

Is not all this very grand and beautiful ? Have 
you ever seen the like before ? The like of it is not to 
be seen upon the planet, apart from the icebergs. With 
cold, fixed, white death, life — warm, elastic, palpitating, 
glorious, powerful life — is wrestling, and will inevitably 
throw. Do you see " the witchery of the shadows '' ? 
Pray look aloft. Castle, temple, chff, all built into one, 
are draped with shadows softer than the tint of doves, 
the morning's early gray, dappled with the warm pearly 
blues of heaven, and edged with fire. The sun is behind 
the ice, and the light is pouring over. A flood of light 
is pouring over. All is edged with fire, streaming with 
lightning ; all its notched and flowing edges hemmed 



THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 255 

with live, scintillating sunshine, ruby, golden, green, and 
blue. See you below that royal sepulchre through its 
crystal door ? Beauty hangs her lamp in there, and the 
sky-blue shadow looks like the fragrant smoke of it. Now 
teU me, was there ever any thing more lovely ? Have 
the poets dreamed of rarer loveliness ? The surf springs 
up like an angel from the tomb, and, with a shout 
of triumph, strikes it with its silvery wings. Ha ! 
you start. But do not be frightened. It was only 
the cracking of the iceberg. But was there ever 
such a blow ? — quick — tremulous — ringing — penetrat- 
ing. Why, it jarred the sea, and thrilled the heart like 
an electric shock. One feels as if the berg had dropped, 
instantly dropped an inch, and cracked to the very core. 
Captain Knight, shall we not fall back a little ? we are 
surely getting too close under. 

While I have been talking, the painter, who sits 
midship, with his thin, broad box upon his knees, 
making his easel of the open lid, has been dashing 
in the colors. The picture is finished, and so, at the 
word, the men pull heavily at their oars, and we come 
round upon the south-eastern, or the cathedral front, as I 
will call it, from the fact that the general appearance is 
architectural, and the prevailing style, the Gothic. A 
dome and minaret, curiously thrown in upon one wing 



256 THE STORY OF AN ICEBESG. 

of the berg, and some elaborately cut arcbes opening 
through the water-line into the cloister-like cavern, 
would suggest the Saracenic, But the pointed and 
the perpendicular prevail, springing up full of life and 
energy, vivid and flame-like in their forms. 

As the berg faces, we are getting the last glances of 
the 4 o'clock sun, and have broad sheets of both light 
and shadow. You see how spirited the whole thing is. 
It is fuU of brilliant, strong effects, "While the hollows 
and depressions harbor the soft, slaty shadows, points and 
prominences fairly blaze and sparkle with sunshine. The 
current now, you discover, sweeps us past the ice, and 
compels us to turn about and row up the stream. Here 
is the point where all is strong and picturesque, and here 
they hold on for the painter. Let us sit upon the little 
bow-deck, and look, and listen to the noises of the waves 
at play in the long, concealed, under-sea piazza. How 
they slap the hollow arches ! Hisses, long-drawn sighs, 
booming thunder-sounds, mingle with, low muttering, 
plunging, rattling, and popping — a bedlam of all the 
lunatic voices of the ocean. We appear to be at the 
edge of a shower, such a sprinkling and spattering of 
drops. All abroad, and all aloft, from every edge and 
gutter the iceberg spouts, and rains, and drips. Over 
the entire face of the ice is flowino; swiftlv down one 



THE STOKY OF AN ICEBEKG. 257 

noiseless river thin as glass, looking, for all the world, 
like the perpetual falling of a transparent veil over the 
richest satin. Here and there, the delicate stream cuts 
into the silvery enamel, and engraves, in high relief, 
brilliant shields of jewelry, diamonds, rubies, amethysts, 
emeralds and sapphires. But yonder is a rare touch of 
the enchanter. Pray, look at it carefully. It is a 
glistening blue line of ice, threading the whiteness 
from top to bottom, a good two hundred feet. It looks 
as if the berg were struck, not with lightning, but with 
sapphire. It is simply transparent ice, and may be com- 
pared to a fissure filled with pellucid spring-water, with 
depths of darkness beyond the visible, illuminated edge. 
Darkness below the pure light flowing in, and reflecting 
from the inner sides of the white ice, gives us the blue. 
You understand the process by which so beautiful a re- 
sult is effected ? Well, the glacier of which this berg is 
a kind of spark, is mainly comj)acted snows, compressed 
to metallic hardness in the omnipotent grasp of nature. 
As it slides on the long, inland valley slope, it bends 
and cracks. The surface-water fills the crevice, and is 
frozen. Thus the glacier is mended, but marked forever 
with the splendid scar which you see before you. You 
fancy it has the hardness of a gem ; it is softer than the 
flinty masses between which it seems to have been run 



258 THE STORY OF AN ICEBEEG. 

like a casting. On tlie opposite slope of the berg, you 
will find it the channel of a torrent, melting and wearing 
faster than the primitive ice. 

How terribly startling is tliis explosion ! It re- 
sounded like a field-piece. And yet you perceive only a 
small bank of ice floating out from below where it burst 
off. Small as it is, the whole berg has felt it, and is 
slightly rolling on its deep down centre. You perceive 
that it is a perfectly adjusted pair of scales, and weighs 
itself anew at the loss of every pound. At the loss of 
every ounce, the central point, around which millions of 
tons are balanced, darts aside a very little, and calls 
upon the entire bulk to make ready and balance all 
afresh. You see the process going on. There, the water- 
line is slowly rising ; and you peep into the long, green- 
ish-white hollow, polished and winding as the interior of 
a sea-shell. Now it pauses, and returns. So will it rise 
and sink alternately until it stands like a headland of 
everlasting marble. 

Again the painter wipes his brushes, puts away his 
second picture, and tacks a fresh pasteboard within the 
cover of his box, and gives the word to pull for the south- 
western side. How finely nature sculptures her decora- 
tions ! Would not Palmer, Powers, and others of that 
company, whose poetic language is in spotless stone, love 



THE STOEY OF AN ICEBERG. 259 

to be with us ? Mark the high rehefs, and the deep, fine 
fluting of this angle, as we pass from the Temple front 
to the clifted. Here you see less to please, and more to 
terrify. A word or so describes it : It is a precipice of 
sparkhng, white ice, freshly broken. The edge of newly 
broken china is nearest like it, with the suspicion of 
green for forty feet or. more up, the reflection of that 
lovely pale green water. Now the currents recoil and 
roll in upon the huge wall in whirling eddies, requiring 
steady toil at the oars, to keep off a plump two hundred 
yards, the proper distance for sketching so large a per- 
pendicular mass. 

If we except the quality and texture of the fracture, 
there is little to paint in all this blaze of sunlight. The 
outline of the berg, though, is worth remembering. It 
cuts the blue vault like the edge of a bright sword, and 
pricks it with flashing spears. The eye darts from point 
to point along its lengthy, zig-zag and flowing thread, and 
sweeps from the sea upward and over to the sea again. 
How persistently the treacherous current labors to bear 
us in upon the cliff' ! Let alone the oars five minutes, 
and we should be among the great rain-drops slipping 
from the overhanging crags. 

Horrible ! The berg is burst. The whole upper 
front is coming. There it is — gone in the sea. Keep 



260 THE STOKY OF AN ICEBEKG. 

still ! — Keep still ! — Don't be frightened ! The captain 
will manage it. Here come the big swells. Hurra ! 
Look out for the next ! Here we go — splendid ! l^ovi 
for the third and last. How she combs as she comes. 
Hurra ! — Hurra ! Here we are — all safe — inside of them. 
See them go ! — racing over the ocean, circles of plumed 
cavalry. Now for the berg. He'll make a magnificent 
roll of it, if he don't go to pieces. Should he, then put 
us half a mile away. See it rise ! — The water-line — 
rising — rising — up — up. It looks like a carriage-way. 
Hark ! — Crack — crack — crack. Quick ! — quick ! Look 
at the black water here ! — all spots and spangles of 
green. Something is coming ! There it comes ! The 
very witchcraft of the deep — Neptune's half-acre, bowers, 
thrones, giants, eagles, elephants, vases spilling, fountains 
pouring, torrents tumbling, glassy banks. Look at the 
peaks slanting off into the blue air, and the great slant 
23recipice. Hah ! Don't you see ? It is coming again — 
slowly coming ! Crack — crack — crack. Down sinks the 
garden — on roll the swells — down go bowers, thrones, stat- 
uary — lost amid the tumult and thunder of the surf. Over 
bends the precipice — this way over — frightfully over — in 
roll the waves — roaring, thundering in — dashing, lashing 
crag and chasm. Wonderful to see ! "Waterfalls bursting 
into light above — plunging in snowy columns to the sea. 



THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 261 

How terrible — terrible all this is ! But 0, bow beau- 
tiful ! Who, that does not witness it, knows any thing 
of the bursting of an iceberg ? It comes with the crash 
of a thunderbolt. But how can one tell the horrible, 
shocking noise ? A pine split by lightning has the point, 
but not the awful breadth and fulness of the sound. 
Air, ocean, and the berg, all fairly spring at the power of 
it. And then the ice-fall, with its ringing, rumbling, 
crashing roar, and the heavy, explosion-like voice of the 
final plunge, followed by the wild, frantic dashing of the 
waters. You see the whole upper face of the ice, yards 
deep, and scores of them in width, all gone. All was 
blasted off instantly, and dropped at once, a stupendous 
cataract of brilliant ruins. 

Here we are, at last, where the painter will revel — 
between the glories of sunset and the iceberg. What 
shall we call all this magnificence, clustered in a square 
quarter of a mile .? The Bernese Alps in miniature. A 
dark violet sea, and Alps in burnished sUver, with the 
colors of the rainbow dissolving among them. Lofty 
ridges, of the shape of flames, have the tint of flame ; 
out of the purity of lilies bloom the pink and rose ; sky- 
blue shadows sleej) in the defiles ; I will not say cloth of 
gold drapes, but water of gold washes — water of ^reen, 
of orange, scarlet, crimson, purple, wash the crags and 



262 THE STORY OF AN ICEBEEG. 

steeps ; strange metallic tints gleam in tlie sliaggy 
caverns — copper, bronze, and gold. Endless grace of form 
and outline ! — endless, endless beauty ! Its shining image 
is in the deep, hanging there as in a molten looking-glass. 
Look down and see it. Now the last rays of day strike 
the berg. How the hues and tints change and flit, flush 
and fade ! A very mirror for the fleeting glories of the 
sunset, or the fitful complexions of the northern light. 
Prodigal Nature ! Is she ever wasting splendors at this 
rate ? Watch them on this broad, slanting park of 
lily-white satin. White ! — It has just a breath of pink. 
Pink ? — It is the richest rose — rose deepening into pur- 
ple — purple trembling into blue, pearly blue, skirted 
with salmon-tints and lilac. Where are the train-bearers 
of this imperial robo ? There they are, the smooth, 
black swells, one, two, three, rolling up, and changing 
into green as they roll up — far up, and break in spai-k- 
ling diamonds on the bosom of the lustrous alabaster. 

Do you hear the music ? what power in sound ! 
Clothed in green and silver, the royal bands of the great 
deep are playing at every portal of the iceberg. Hark ! 
Half thunder, and half the harmony of grand organs. 

" "Waters, iu the still magnificence, 
• Their solemn cymbals beat." 

The painter's work is over. And now for harbor — aU 



THE STORY OF AN ICEBERG. 263 

sails spread — a downy pressure on them, and the twilight 
ocean. Indomitable pencil ! If the man is not at it 
again ! — A last, flying sketch in lead. Let us take one 
more look at the berg — a farewell look. It is a beautiful 
creation — superlatively beautiful. It is more — sublime 
and beautiful — fold upon fold — spotless ermine — caught 
up from the billows, and suspended by the fingers of 
Omnipotence. 

The Merciful One ! It is falling ! — Cliffs and pinna- 
cles bursting — crashing — tumbling with redoubling thun- 
ders. — Pillars and sheaves of foam leap aloft. — Wave 
chases wave, careering wild and high. — Columns and 
splintered fragments spring from the deep convulsively, 
toppling and plunging. — A multitude of small icebergs 
spot the dusky waters. One slender obelisk, slowly rock- 
ing to and fro, stands a monument among the scattered 
ruins. 



CHAPTEE XLIX. 

DRIFTING- IN THE STRAITS.— EETEEAT TO TEMPLE BAT.— PICTU- 
RESQUE SCENERY.— VOYAGERS' SATURDAY NIGHT. 

We are drifting to the north shore in spite of all that 
can he done, and positively have not heen hefore in so 
great danger. Our anchor, with all the cable we have, 
would he swinging above the bottom, were we close to 
the rocks, A reckless skipper, not long ago in a similar 
predicament, let go his anchor with the expectation that 
it would catch in time to save him, but he went bows on, 
and lost his vessel Our hope is that some one of the 
flaws of wind, now ruffling the water every little while 
in various directions, will catch our sails, and allow us to 
escape into Temple Bay, a land-locked harbor close by. 
My anxiety to return home makes this delay a little 
vexatious, and galls my thin-skinned j^atience. We had 
every reason to hope, this morning, that we should be 



PICTURESQUE SCENERY. 265 

througli these perilous narrows and upon the broad gulf 
by midnight. 

The breeze touches us at the last moment, and we 
are gliding through the narrow pass between high craggy 
banks, over a comparatively shallow bottom, visible from 
the deck, into what appears to be a lake surrounded by 
mountains not unlike those about West Point, barring 
their fine woods. Eeally Labrador can show us, at last, 
a little forest greenery. Without a point of grandeur, 
this is the most picturesq[ue scenery we have found on 
the coast. The greenish waters, tinted by the verdure 
reflected from their surface, expand to the breadth of a 
mile by six or seven in length, with a depth of fifty 
fathoms or more. We glide past the village — a knot of 
fish-houses, flakes and dwellings, in the bight to the 
left or south, and drop anchor within pistol-shot of the 
spruces and a mountain brook. Here we are, till next 
week, like a lonely fly on this mirror of the mountains, 
and must make the most of our shadows and reflections, 
sunshine and solitude, and see what they will bring us. 

I sit upon deck and look about upon the wild, noise- 
less scene, and say : What a Idhely Saturday afternoon ! 
The weary week is just lying down to ruminate in these 
solemn shades. A few scattering sounds, the finishing 

strokes of the axe and hammer, and the low wail of the 
12 



266 voyagers' Saturday night. 

surf beyond the coast-ridge break the rest of the cool, 
bracing air. The upper end of the lake, as I call the 
bay or fiord, is hidden behind a headland, reminding me 
of our Hudson Butter HiU. Notliing would be pleasanter 
than a small voyage of discovery by twilight. Below the 
stern of the schooner, which swings near the beach, are the 
timbers of a ship peeping above water, and full of story, 
no doubt, as so many old salts. We have had a most 
agreeable tea-time, the Captain entertaining us with in- 
cidents of his life upon these northern seas. My regret, 
not to say vexation, that we had to leave the strait and 
retreat to the safety of this lovely fold, provided by the 
Good Shepherd of the deep, is quite dissipated after a 
little sketch of the perils to which v^e should have been 
subjected among the currents, becalmed and immersed in 
fog, banks of which I see already peeping over the hills 
along the shore. Sunset and twilight and the dusk of 
evening have come and gone. The stars are out in mul- 
titudes, Arcturus among them high in the great arch, 
and the depths, above which we seem to hang suspended, 
are thickly sown with their trembling images. 



CHAPTER L. 

SUNDAY IN TEMPLE BAT.— KELIGIOUS SERVICES.— THE FISHERMAN'S 
DINNER AND CONVERSATION.— CHATEAU.— THE WRECK.— WINTERS 
IN LABRADOR.— ICEBERGS IN THE WINTER.— THE FRENCH OFFI- 
CERS' FROLIC WITH AN ICEBERG.— THEORY OF ICEBERGS.— CUR- 
RENTS OF THE STRAIT.— THE RED INDIANS.— THE RETURN TO 
THE VESSEL. 

Monday, July 19. Early yesterday morning, a boat 
with tan-colored sails came off from tlie town, and found 
that we were not traders from Newfoundland, as they 
supposed, but visitors merely, and direct from Mr. 
Hutchinson, their minister, of whose return they were 
delighted to hear tidings. It was soon settled that I 
should be their clergyman for the day, notice of which 
was given very quickly upon their going back to the 
village, by sending from house to house, and flying the 
Sunday flag, a white banner with a red cross. Our men, 
in holiday clothes, were prompt at their oars, and soon 
placed us on the l^each, where wc were met by Mr. 



268 THE pishekman's dinner and conveesation. 

Clark, one of the city fathers, who politely invited us to 
his house, and afterward attended us to the place of 
worship, a small rude building, which was crowded, the 
children gathering close about me. After the. usual 
Church of England service, I preached extempore on our 
need of redemption, and the sufficiency and. freeness of 
that which has been graciously provided. After a brief 
intermission, all returned to the evening service and 
sermon, which concluded the religious exercises of the 
day. We dined at Mr. Clart's, on fisherman's fare, gar- 
nished with salted duck, a new dish to us, and requiring 
the discipline of use and a rough life in order to relish 
very well. 

While at dinner and after, our host entertained us in 
a simple, sketchy way with incidents and adventures illus- 
trating the story of the place, and of his own life. Cha- 
teau, the name of the village, is more ancient than the old 
French and English war, during which it suffered pillage 
and burning. The wreck beneath our stern, of which I 
spoke, was that of an English vessel with a cargo of furs, 
fish and oil, and was there run aground and fired by the 
captain, to prevent her falling into the hands of the 
enemy. Even these remote rocks and waters have his- 
toric associations of thrilling interest. 

According to the custom of those who live perma- 



WINTEUS IN LABRADOll. 269 

nently in Labrador, Clark and a few of his neiglibors 
remove, in autumn, to the evergreen woods along the 
streams at the head of the bay, and spend more than 
half of the year in hunting and sealing, and getting tim- 
ber and firewood for the summer. In some respects, it is 
a holiday time, and compensates for the unremitting toil 
of the fishing season. 

The experience of years with icebergs has not made 
them common things, like the waves and hills, but rather 
increased the sense of their terrible j)Ower and grandeur. 
They frequently arrive covered with earth and stones, an 
indication of their recent lapse from the land, and of the 
brevity of their time upon the sea. During the cold 
months they are deeply covered with snow, and have a 
rounded, heavy, and drowsy aspect. It is the warm 
weather that gives them their naked brilliancy, and 
melts them into picturesque forms, and rolls and ex- 
plodes them in the magnificent style, I have attempted to 
describe. They are seen to move occasionally at the 
same rate of speed, whether through the densely packed 
ice or the open sea. Wind, current and tide, and the 
ocean crowded with ice as far as sight can reach, all fre- 
quently set in one direction, and the bergs in another. 
On they move, majestic and serene, tossing the crystal 
masses from their shaggy breasts, cracking, crashing. 



270 FRENCH officers' FROLIC WITH AN ICEBERG. 

thundering along. There are spaces of dark water spot- 
ting the white expanse. It makes no difference ; all move 
on alike. None hastens in the open'water ; none pauses 
at the heaped-up banks. All on the surface of the deep 
is only so much froth before the Alp whose foundations 
are immersed in the great submarine currents. 

He told us a story illustrating the danger of icebergs, 
and the temerity of making familiar with them. A few 
years ago, while a French man-of-war was* lying at 
anchor in Temple Bay, the younger officers resolved on 
amusing themselves with an iceberg, a mile or more 
distant in the straits. They made sumptuous prepara- 
tions for a pic-nic upon the very top of it, the myste- 
ries of which they were curious to see. All warnings 
of the brown and simple fishermen, in the ears of the 
smartly dressed gentlemen who had seen the world, were 
quite idle. It was a bright summer morning, and the 
jolly boat with a showy flag went off to the berg. By 
twelve o'clock the colors were flying from the icy 
turrets, and the wild midshipmen were shouting from its 
walls. For two hours or so they hacked, and clambered 
the crystal palace ; frolicked and feasted ; drank wine to 
the king and the ladies, and laughed at the thought of 
peril where all was so fixed and solid. As if in amaze- 
ment at such rashness, the grim Alp of the sea made 



THEORY OF ICEBERGS. 271 

neither sound nor motion. A profound stillness watched 
on his shining pinnacles, and hearkened in the hlue 
shadows of liis caves. When, like thoughtless children, 
they had jDlayed themselves weary, the old alabaster of 
Greenland mercifully suffered them to gather up their 
toys, and go down to their cockle of a boat, and flee away. 
As if the time and the distance were measured, he 
waited until they could see it and live, when, as if his 
heart had been volcanic fire, he burst with awful thun- 
ders, and filled the surrounding waters with his ruins. 
A more astonished little party seldom comes home to tell 
the story of their panic. It was their first, and their last 
day of amusement with an iceberg. 

It seems rather late in the day for persons of some 
experience in these regions, to be ignorant of the origin 
of icebergs. I asked our friend, as I had others, how he 
supposed that they were formed. He imagined that they 
were merely the accumulations of loose ice, snow and 
frozen spray, in the intensely cold regions of the arctic 
ocean. Piles of broken ice, driven together, and cemented 
by the heavy snows and the repeated dashing t)f the surf, 
would in time become the huge and solid islands that 
we see. Such is the theory of their formation with all 
whom I have heard express themselves on the subject, 
and I believe the one very generally received. When 



272 CUERENTS OF THE STKAIT. 

this explanation was objected to, and tlie facts stated 
that icebergs were glaciers, first formed on the land, and 
then launched into the sea, our kind host expressed his 
doubts more modestly than some others had done of less 
intelligence and experience. 

Speaking of the currents in the straits, he said he 
could not well conceive any in the world more dangerous. 
While exceedingly powerful, they were shifting. What 
rendered this perilous to the last degree, was the exces- 
sively deep water and the boldness of the shores. One 
could toss a bullet into water frequently too deep for the 
ancliorage of smaller vessels. In times of calm, and in 
connection with the dense fogs peculiar to those coasts, a 
vessel could not drift about in the straits without the risk 
of being thrown upon the rocks and lost. When we were 
lying becalmed off Temple Bay, on Saturday afternoon, 
he was watching us from a hill-to|), and remarked to a 
neighbor, that he was sorry for the skipper out there, and 
feared, unless the wind came to his relief before dark, he 
would get ashore. 

He remarked that fresh water may be dipped in 
winter, from small open spaces in the bay — a fact I do not 
remember to have read of in the pages of arctic voyagers. 
I concluded that this only is true, where the water is 
undisturbed below, and where the open spaces are small, 



THE KETUKN TO THE VESSEL. 273 

and hemmed in with ic3 in a way to break off the wind. 
It is simply rain-water, I suppose, resting upon the sur- 
face of the heavier salt water. In the course of the con- 
versation, he stated that there was, at some distance back 
in the interior, a remnant of the red Indians so called, 
once a savage and troublesome tribe in Newfoundland. 
Driven from thence on account of their hostile and un- 
tamable nature, they had finally taken refuge in the remote 
vales of Labrador, where they now live, as is commonly 
reported, nursing their ancient enmity, but too prudent 
to reappear among the whites, or let their exact habita- 
tion be known. 

Pleased with the talk of the fisherman of Chateau, 
we bade him and his family good-by, and returned on 
board to a second dinner, a little more to our taste. 



12* 



CHAPTEE LI. 

EVENING WALK TO TEMPLE BAT MOUNTAIN.— THE LITTLE ICEBERG. 
— TBOUBLES OF THE NIGHT AND PLEASUEES OF THE MOENING.— 
UP THE 8TEAITS.— THE PINNACLE OF THE LAST lOEBEEG.— THE 
GULF OF ST. LAWEENCE. 

After dinner and a pleasant conversation on deck, 
we found time to slip ashore, and thread our way througli 
thickets of sweet-scented spruce to the mountain-top for 
a prospect. Once in my life, on the borders of a forest 
pond, in the lower St. Lawrence country, I experienced 
the plague of black flies to an extent that was quite 
frightful. I turned from the margin where, head and 
face covered with handkerchiefs, I was fishing, and ran 
to a woodman's hut. The same flies swarmed about us 
on the mountain of Temple Bay, and drove us down 
through its evergreens with all the speed it was prudent 
to make. 

In the edge of the twilight, the Captain went across 
the bay to a little mouse of a berg, that had been all day 



THE LITTLE ICEBEKG. 275 

creeping in from sea, to get a few cakes of ice ; and asked 
our company. Our mouse, as might be expected, turned 
out to be a lion. We rowed alongside, notwithstanding, 
and sprung upon his white, glassy back melted all over 
into a roughness that resembled the rippled surface of a 
pond. In attempting to walk to a fairy-like bowl, full of 
that lovely blue water, the painter slipped up, and 
came near sliding oif altogether. But for the Captain, 
at whose legs he caught as he was going by, he would 
have had a fine plunge and a ducking. Our chick of a 
berg, only ten or twelve feet across with a few minute 
pieces of sculpture in the shape of vases and recumbent 
animals, lay in its pale green bath like a burr or star, its 
white points visible at quite a depth — a fact which served 
to corroborate some experiments we had been making 
with respect to the parts of an iceberg under water. 
Here was a mass, with the exception of a few trifling 
spurs, only a little above the surface, but with a bulk, 
the extreme points of which were too far below to be dis- 
covered. To conclude several amusing liberties we were 
taking with it, the Captain proceeded to spHt off a kind 
of figure-head attached to the main body by a sort of 
horse-neck, which no sooner fell into the water than our 
bantling began to imitate the motions of the tallest giant 
of the icebergs. In making the grand swing, however, it 



276 TROUBLES OF THE NIGHT. 

rolled completely over, and came within an ace of catch- 
ing lis upon one of its horns. Anticipating the chance of 
danger from below, I looked over the side of the hoat, 
when, sure enough, a prong was coming up in a way to 
give us a toss that would he no sport. A lucky push off 
saved us. Like the spoke of a big wheel it rolled up, giv- 
ing us a blow in the ribs as it passed, and a good rocking 
on the swash. One would scarcely think that there was 
any excitement in so trifling an incident, but there was, 
and enough of it to make me resolve to meddle no more 
with a thing of the kind larger than a lamb. When it 
settled to rest, it was exactly upside down, and presented 
a curious specimen of the honey-comb work of the waters. 
It may occur to some that -we were sporting upon the 
Lord's Day. Upon reflection I confess that we .were, 
although we might plead the privilege of voyagers, and 
the long day which touches hard upon our midnight. 

Upon our return we found the musquitoes, a pecu- 
liarly hungry and poisonous species, coming down from 
the woods in numbers. We determined to crush that 
mischief in the bud, and did it most effectually, by fill- 
ing the cabin with the dense smoke of spruce boughs, and 
then, upon its escape, coveiing the entrance with a sheet. 
One only came feebly and timidly singing about my face 
before I got to sleep. About one o'clock, there were 



PLEASURES OF THE MORNING. 277 

sounds above : sliaking of blocks and cordage, now and 
then a thump with a creak of booms, and jerking of the 
rudder. I went up ; there was no watch ; all were soundly 
sleeping. The ship's cat was out on the rail, running 
from place to place, and mewing mournfully. The sky 
looked ominous, and there was the roar of wind outside. 
The waters and the woods of the bay, so prettily named, 
were gloomy as the crypt ' of a temple. I crept to my 
dreams, out of which in no long time I was startled by 
the painter. He was getting up to have his look. Ho 
reported breezes, but in the wrong direction, and without 
comment felt his way back to bed. At two, the voice of 
the Captain put an end to slumbers, fore and aft. Ho 
was calling all hands to the deck, where presently all 
was noise and bustle, hoisting sail, and heaving at the 
anchor. The old motion was soon perceptible, and wo 
knew that we were taking leave of Temple Bay — a fact 
of which we were assured by the Captain, who peeped in 
upon us, by lifting a corner of the musquito-sheet, and 
announced the good tidings that the wind, northeast, was 
blowing briskly, and that the straits would give us no 
further trouble. 

No sooner were we clear of the " tickle," or narrows, 
than " Iceberg ahead ! " — " Ice on the Ice bow ! " was 
cried by the man forward. It was no more to our pur- 



278 THE GULF OF ST. LAWKENCE. 

poso to go up and look at ices. It Avas a comfortable 
reflection that we were now bidding them farewell. By 
way of a parting salute, one of the bergs burst asunder 
Avith a great noise, before that we wore out of the reach 
of its shells. But its thunder fell but faintly on oiu- 
practised ears, and rather encouraged than disturbed our 
disposition to sleep. When daylight was broad upon the 
straits, wc were over the worst, and the last iceberg, like 
the top of some solitary mausoleum of the desert, was 
sinking below the horizon. The high wind and sea were 
after us, and we ran with speed and comparative stillness. 
By noon wo were fairly through ; with Forteau, the last 
of Labrador, on the north — to the south, the coast of New- 
foundland, and the broad gulf of St. Lawrence expanding 
before us. "Wo felt that ayo might then breathe freely. 
The breeze most surely did, and we sped on our way 
southward toward Capo Breton. 



CHAPTEK LII. 

COAST SCENEEY. — FAKEWELL TO LABRADOK. 

The coast of Labrador was really fine, all tlio fore- 
noon, and sometimes strikingly grand. It has lost some- 
thing of the desolate and savage character it has about 
the Capes St. Louis and St. Charles, and seems more 
like a habitable land. There arc long and graceful 
slopes and outlines of pale green hills slanting down to 
the sea, along which is the craggy shorc-hne, black, 
brown and red. The last few miles, and which is near 
the Canadian border, the red sandstone shore is exceed- 
ingly picfurcsquc. It has a right royal presence along 
the deep. Lofty, semicircular promontories descend in 
regidar terraces nearly down, then sweep out gracefully 
with an ample lap to the margin. No art could produce 
better effect. The long, terraced galleries are touched 
with a tender green, and the well-hollowed vales, now 



280 COAST SCENERY. 

aud then occurring, and ascending to the distant horizon 
between ranks of rounded hills, look green and pasture- 
like. All, you must bear in mind, is treeless nearly, and 
utterly lonely. Here and there are small detachments of 
dwarf firs, looking as if they were either on their re- 
treat to the woodlands of a warmer clime, or on their 
march from it, in order to get a foothold, and make a 
forest settlement remote from the woodman's axe. Any- 
way, in their lonesome and inhospitable halt, they darken 
the light greens and the gray greens with very lively effect. 
The Battery, as sailors call it, is a wall of red sand- 
stone, of some two or three miles in extent, with hori- 
zontal lines extending from one extreme to the other, 
and perpendicular fissures resembling embrasures and 
gateways. Swelling out with grand proportions toward 
the sea, it has a most military and picturesque appear- 
ance. At one point of this huge citadel of sohtude, 
there is the resemblance of a giant portal, with stupen- 
dous piers two hundred feet or more in elevation. They 
are much broken by the yearly assaults of the frost, and 
the eye darts up the ruddy ruins with surprise. If there 
was anything to defend, here is a Gibraltar at hand, with 
comparatively small labor, whose guns could nearly cross 
the strait. Beneath its precipitous cliffs the debris 
slopes like a glacis to the beach, with both smooth and 



COAST SCENEKY. 281 

broken surfaces^ and all very handsomely decorated with 
rank herbage. Above the great walls, there is a range 
of terraces ascending Tvith marked regularity for quite a 
distance. Miles of ascending country, prairie-like, greet 
the eye along tliis edge of Labrador. " Arms of gold " — 
is it ? Possibly these promontories, golden in the rising 
and the setting sun, may have suggested to Cabot or 
some other explorer, before or since, the propriety of christ- 
ening this dead body of a country by some redeeming 
name. 

Among the very pretty and refreshing features of the 
coast are its brooks, seen occasionally falling over the 
rocks ill white cascades. Harbors are passed now and 
then with small fishing fleets and dwellings. Forteau 
has a church-spire pointing heavenward among its white 
buildings and brown masts, and is the most eastern place 
in the diocese of Newfoundland visited by Bishop Field. 
It is not unlikely that he is now there engaged in the 
sacred duties of his office, and certainly would have at- 
tracted us thither, could we have spared a day. On the 
point from which we took our final departure from the 
north shore, stands a high lighthouse, erected at great 
cost, and around its base are clustering the greens of a 
kitchen garden ! Adieu, bleak Labrador ! They tell 
me that the warmest of summers is now upon thy honey- 



282 FAEEWELL TO LABRADOE. 

less and milkless land. If this is thy July — I say it 
under an overcoat of the deepest nap — spare me thy 
December. 

But why, at parting, should I speak roughly unto 
thee, and whet the temper to talk ill of thee, in the 
presence of rich gardens, yellow fields, and ruddy or- 
chards ? Hast not thou thy horned cariboo, the reindeer, 
thy fox of costly fur, and thy wild-fowl of wintry plu- 
mage ? Hast not thou thy bright-eyed salmon, graced 
with lines as delicate and lovely as those of beauty's arm, 
and complexioned like the marigold " damasked by the 
neighboring rose " ? — thy whales and seals to fill with oil 
the hghthouse lamp, to fill with starry flame the lighthouse 
lantern ? — thy pale green capelin, silvery-sided myriads 
that allure the " fish," calling their millions to the hooks 
and seines of thy toiling fishermen — ^hardy, hospitable 
people, whose kentles of white-fleshed cod buy the ruby 
wine and yellow fruits of Cuba and Oporto ? Hast thou 
not dealt kindly with us, and shown us these thy fat 
things, and all thy richer, nobler treasures ? Hast thou 
not uncurtained thy resplendent pictures of the sky, the 
ocean, and the land ? And have we not gazed delight- 
ed and awe-struck upon the grandeur of a great and 
terrible wilderness, upon the gloom of its shadowy atmos- 
phere, upon the brilliancy of its sunlight ? Have we 



FAREWELL TO LABRADOR. 283 

not heard the footsteps of the billows inarching to their 
encampment in the grottoes of the cliffs ; and seen the 
silent, inshore deeps ; the imprisoned islands and grim 
headlands armed with impenetrable granite ; the vales 
and deUs, and hill-sides with their mosses and their 
flowers, sweet odors, and sweet melodies ? — most beau- 
tiful, most wonderful of all, thine icebergs, and thy twi- 
light heavens ? All these, and more, of thy greatness 
and thy glory, have we looked upon, and they will have 
their reflections, and their echoes in the memory forever. 
Beauty may watch, and supphcate, and weep sometimes 
upon the crags now receding from our view, but she is 
surely there, and native to the wildest pinnacle and 
cavern. And wliile to the careless eye and thoughtless 
heart thou art verily dark and bleak, yet art thou neither 
barren nor unfruitful. Old Labrador, farewell ! 



CHAPTER LIII. 

WESTERN NEWFOUNDLAND.— THE BAT, TEE ISLANDS, AND THE 
HIGHLANDS OF ST. JOHN.— INGOENACHOIX BAT. 

Newfoundland now lifts its blue summits along the 
southeast sky, a kind of Catskill heights, with here and 
there patches of snow, that recall to mind the White 
Mountain House. In the course of the afternoon, we 
pass them, and find that they are the highlands of St. 
John, the loftiest, I believe, in the island, and boucd the 
bay called by the same lovely name. 

What a region for romantic excursion ! Yonder are 
wooded mountains with a sleepy atmosphere, and at- 
tractive vales, and a fine river, the river Castor, flowing 
from a country almost unexplored ; and here are green 
isles spotting the sea — the islands of St. John. Be- 
hind them is an expanse of water, alive with fish and 
fowl, the extremes of which are lost in the deep, un- 
troubled wilderness. A month would not suffice to find 



THE HIGHLANDS OF ST. JOHN. 285 

out and enjoy its manifold and picturesque beauties, 
througli which wind the deserted trails of the Ecd 
Indian, now extinct or banished. Why they should have 
left, with all these unappropriated breadths of solitude for 
their inheritance, I do not precisely understand. There 
are mournful tales told of their wrongs and their revenges, 
the old story of contests between the civilized and the 
savage. 

Yonder, at the termination of the highlands, is a 
cape, no matter what is its French name, since directly 
bebind it is a bay with an Indian name tough enough to 
last one round a dozen capes — the Bay of Ingornachoix, 
noted for its harbors, inlets, and pretty streams, another 
fine region for the summer tourist. Beyond the woody 
distances rising in the east, there lies a lengthy lake, the 
centre of a little world of interest to the lovers of nature 
and the picturesque. It is no great distance across the 
island here to the shores of White Bay, a remote expanse 
of waters, to whicb few but fishermen have any occasion 
to penetrate. 

As the evening advances the wind strengthens, and 
bears us rapidly along the coast. Thus we are encircling 
Newfoundland, and finding spots of beauty, to which, if 
we may not return ourselves, we can direct others of like 
taste and sentiment. We come down from the cold air, 



286 INGOENACHOIX BAY. 

and from looking at a fine aurora now playing in the 
skies, and gleaming by reflection in tlie waves, and sit by 
the cabin lights, and talk and write, inspect the sketches, 
and listen to the roar of winds and surges — rather melan- 
choly music. 



CHAPTER LIV. 

SLOW SAILING BY TIIK BAY OF ISLANDS.— THE lUVEU IIUMBEU.— 
ST. GEORGE'S RIVER, CAPE, AND BAY. -A BRILLIANT SUNSET. 

Tuesday, July 19. Wc have a brilliant morning 
and a favoring breeze, but a vexatious current. What a 
net of these currents has the tyrannous Neptune set 
around his beloved Newfoundland ! Like a web in a 
dim cellar window, it is perpetually entangling some fly 
of a craft in its subtle meshes. Buzz and struggle as 
we will, he has got us by the foot, and, spider-like, may 
look on, and enjoy our perplexity. "We advance with 
insufferable slowness, notwithstanding the considerable 
speed of our rounded bows, through the water. " That is 
the Bay of Islands," they said, early in the morning. It 
is the Bay of Islands still. We are a long time sailing 
by the Bay of Islands. But it gives us time to look, 
and talk about it with the Captain. Beyond the forest- 
covered hills which surround it^ arc lakes as beautiful, 



288 ST. geokge's eivee, cape, and bat, 

and larger than Late Greorge, the cold, clear waters of 
which flow to the bay under the name of the river 
Humber. It has a valley like Wyoming, and more 
romantic scenery than the Susquehanna. The Bay of 
Islands is also a bay of streams and inlets, an endless 
labyrinth of cliffs and woods and waters, where the 
summer voyager would delight to wander, and which is 
worth a volume sparkling with pictures. 

How fine a blue the waters of the gulf are in this 
light ! We seem to be upon the broad Atlantic. What 
a realm of seas and shores, islands, bays and rivers, is 
this St. Lawrence world, in the midst of which we now 
are, and of which our people know so little ! Where are 
our young men, who have the time and money to skip, 
from summer to summer, in the fashionable rounds of 
travel, that they do not seek this virgin scenery ? One 
long, loud yell of the black loon, deep diver of these lakes 
and fiords, pealing through the silent evening, would ring 
in their recollection long after the music of city parks 
abroad had been forgotten. 

Late in the day, and Cape St. George in view, a bold 
and cliffced point pushed out from the mainland twenty 
miles or more, and commanding extensive prospects both 
inland and along the coast. A month would not suffice 
for all its many landscapes. St. Greorge's Eiver is a wild, 



A BRILLIANT SUNSET. 289 

rapid stream, and St. George's Bay is quite a little sea, 
deep, and darkened by the shadows of fine mountains, 
and broad woodlands. Like the Bay of Islands, it is a 
paradise for the huntsman, and the fisher. Awake, ye 
devotees of the fishing-rod and rifle, and the red camp- 
fire beneath the green-wood trees, and know that to visit 
St. George's cape and bay and river, and all that is St. 
George's, is better late than never. 

The sun is in the waves, and yonder we have those 
wonderful heavens again. The west is all one bath of 
colors, colors of the rainbow. And clouds like piled-up 
fleeces, and like fleeces pulled apart and scattered, and 
fleeces spun into soft and woolly threads, and again those 
threads woven into downy fabrics, are weltering in the 
glory. The wind has fallen, and the waves have put out 
all their white, flashing lights, and now mould themselves 
into the flowing lines and the sweetest forms of beauty. 
We go down with glad hearts, and ask protection for the 
nio'ht. 



13 



CHAPTEK LV. 

FOUL WEATHER.— CAPE ANGUILLE. — THE CLEAKING OFF.— THE 
FEOLIO OF THE POKPOISES.— THE NEW COOKS.— THE SHIP'S 
GAT. 

Wednesday, July 20. We have a misty morning, 
and a contrary wind. If tliere are any two words in 
English, that early fell in love and married, and have a 
numerous progeny, those words are Patience and Progress. 
They do not walk hand in hand, hut, like the red Ind- 
ians, in single file. If Progress walk before. Patience is 
close behind, which order of march now happens to pre- 
vail, and a good deal to our discomfort. In the mean time, 
in company with this leisurely and quiet maid, we are 
beating in and out from land, in long and tedious 
stretches, with large gains upon one tack, and nearly as 
large losses on the other. 

Peeping through the rainy atmosphere is Cape An- 



THE FKOLIC OF THE TORPOISES. 291 

giiille, the neighboring heights of which are five hun- 
dred feet above the tide, and sweep off in dim and 
lengthy lines. The strong head-wind is blowing away 
the mists, the seas are up in arirs, crested with snowy 
plumes, flashing and sparkling. Clouds, in white uniform, 
at quick-time march in long battalions, moving inland 
and leaving the defenceless shores to sunshine and the 
dashing surf. The sails mutter a deep, low bass. The 
" puffpigs," classic name for porpoise, are playing a thou- 
sand pranks about us, and we are partners in the frolic ; 
watching, laughing at, and pelting them, all of whicli 
they seem to regard as the merest nonsense of only a 
tubfuU of helpless creatures in the upper air. They ap- 
pear to be in the very highest glee, a party of fast young 
fellows, well bred and fed, and in holiday fin and skin. 
Like swallows round a barn, they play about our bows, 
wheeling, plunging, darting to the surface, spouting, 
splashing, every tail and rolling back of them full of fun 
and laughter. After a spell of this ground and lofty 
tumbling in the shadow of our jib, away they trip it, like 
so many frisky buffalo calves, side by side, in squads and 
couples, crossing and recrossing, kicking up their heels 
and turning summersets — a kind of rollicking good-by. 
Not a bit of it : round they come again, by tens and 
twenties, wild with merriment, on a perfect gallop, and 



292 THE NEW COOKS. 

dive below the vessel. Up they pop with puff and snort 
on all sides and ends, and dart away like shuttles, with a 
thread of light behind them, to go over and over again 
the gamesome round. 

Sandy, whose coarse good nature has been dropping 
from his very finger ends in the way of stones thrown at 
the jolly fishes, has the smallest possible aptitude for the 
domestic art he is practising. Neither does his fancy 
take at all to the fair ways of neatness. Beyond frying 
pork and fish in one pan, and boiling potatoes in one pot, 
and making tea in one kettle, as a housewife steeps her 
simples, and every separate vessel, fakir-like, to sit from 
meal to meal in undisturbed repose, wrapped in the 
dingy mantle of its own defilement, Sandy has no ambi- 
tion. Indignant, his superiors have read him several 
homilies to the point. But the lessons have fallen upon 
his attention like the first drops of a shower upon a 
duck's back. The painter even went so far as to indulge 
himself in a brief, emphatic charge, in the end of which 
there darted out a stinging threat, anent washing and 
scouring. Across the cloud of Sandy's unhappy brow a 
faint smile was, at length, seen to pass, and charge and 
threat dropped like pebbles into the muddy deeps of his 
forgetfulness. Sandy, therefore, has virtually been de- 
posed, and now occupies the lowly position of a mere 



THE NEW COOKS. 293 

lackey to cooks of character. There are now, instead of 
one indifferent, three pre-eminent cocks : a painter, a 
captain, and a writer. They employ, divert, and fre- 
quently disappoint themselves in the several dishes they 
attempt. Not that the dishes in themselves are so 
bad, but that they fall so far short of the ideal of the 
excellent. 

When I was a lad, spruce-beer and gingerbread were 
the nectar and ambrosia at general trainings. I wanted 
some ambrosia. The cooking-stove was instantly fired, 
and so was the painter, on the important occasion, who, 
from his skill in combining pigments on his pallet, had 
suspicions of ability in compounding ingredients for the 
pan and oven ; and therefore, nothing loth, was persuaded 
to undertake, with the secrecy of some hoar alchemist of 
old, in the dim retirement of the cabin, the conglomera- 
tion from flour and ginger, sugar, salt, soda and hot 
water, of a tremulous mass that should emanate, under 
his plastic hand, in a generous and tempting cake. To 
the large surprise of both mariner and author, order at 
length arose out of that chaos in a milk-pan, and appear- 
ed in upper day, when, with conscious but with a modest 
air of triumph, it was passed into the hands of the chief- 
baker, who roasted both it and himself, for a sultry and 
smoky hour, with entire success. Hot as metal from a 



294 THE NEW COOKS. 

furnacej and of a rich Potawatomie red, it was tasted, 
and found nearly as hot with ginger, and then prudently 
laid away to cool and petrify. The history of the decline 
and fall of that memorable loaf will probably never be 
written. It is enough to say, that, although the disin- 
tegrating process was at first a little difficult, owing to 
some doubt about the proper instrumentalities, yet it is 
now easily dissected with a saw. It is unnecessary to 
remark, that but one such batch of the ruddy bread 
is needed on a pleasure-voyage. The painter has 
fresh reason to congratulate himself that in all his 
works he succeeds in imparting an element of per- 
petuity. 

Our great difficulty is the smallness of the caboose 
and the stove, which will not permit the carrying on of 
all operations at the same time — a circumstance which is 
apt to leave no more than a kindly warmth, if not a 
decided coolness, in all dishes but the last in hand. We, 
the landsmen of the cuhnary trio, have also a dreadful 
foe to fight, and, in any thing like a severe battle, are 
sure to fall. It is ever lurking near our outposts, and is 
sure to rush upon us in rough weather. They called it 
sea-sickness, I dare say, as early as when they voyaged 
for the golden fleece. Its effects are described in a lan- 
guage more venerable than that of Greece : " They reel 



THE ship's cat. 295 

to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at 
their wits' end." That describes our case exactly. It 
lays Loth dishes and ourselves completely on the shelf. 
Forthwith tea, cakes and coffee, meats, vegetables, fruits, 
and fish are allowed a play-spell, perhaps a long yellow 
holiday, and may go on a pic-nic, a bathing, or a fishing, 
or a shooting frolic under the table, among the baggage, 
or around the cabin floor, as the bend of things incline. 
The Captain, however, is apt to interpose in such dis- 
orders, and discipline the wild wares much to his own, 
and often to our relief. 

We arc amused, annoyed, and distressed at the 
ship's cat. She is an incorrigible thief and pick-shelf, 
and bent on making the most of us while we last. The 
painter is down upon her, and will not endure her for a 
moment. The cabin was recently the field of a bloodless 
battle, the din whereof was startling as far off as the 
caboose, in the smoke of which I was weeping over 
the remains of the late breakfast. Loud shouting, in- 
terspersed with shocks of irate bodies, boots, broom, 
cane, against barrels and amongst boxes came upon the 
peaceful ear, and warned me to hasten to the edge of 
things and look down. Tantaene animis celestibus iree ! 
There was no consciousness of a spectator of the militant 
manoeuvres, but a mighty thrashing and furious thrust- 



2UG Till'; suit's cat. 

iiij^-, ami Avliijiiiiug of a scraj;-s;y i^])ruco-boui;'li aiuoui;- tubs, 
Jiii;s, atul cans, aiul away bcluiul. There was a steady 
lire ill (lie face, uiul a i)istol-sliot sliarpness in the 
"seat." (Iriiualkiii answered Avilh a terrible wauling, 
and linally with fixod tail inaile a dash past the enemy, 
esea})ini;' n\) (he steps into my fuco and eyes almost, and 
rotroatiug to the bowsprit. Pnss is a hold sailor. She 
fdvips upon the talVrail, elin\bs the shroiuls, sits with caso 
and dignity upon the boom, yawns and stretches among 
the rigging. Poi>r Tnssy, she is not a silken-haired, 
daintily-fed i-al, but a creature of baclcbono and ribs, 
coated with fnr unru'hed and scorched, indicative of 
kichs and a. meagre cu])hoaril. iShe treads no downy 
bed, and ]Mns in no loved tlanghter's lap. As she comes 
mewing gingerly abont my i'cet, and coils herself in a 
sunny twist of rope, 1 think oi' onr own household tabby, 
and call her by all the t'eline names ex})ressive of good- 
will and tenderness. 

How the brcczo pipes ! IToarso music this, played 
ujion the cordage of onr light littlo schooner. Old Saint 
Laurent, tliy winds and waves aro not always symbols of 
a martyr's gentleness. A few seasons agx), just hero in 
sight of yoi\der lulls and vallevs now dreaming under an 
atmosphere of quiet, raptain Knight experienced a most 
appalling sea. While there is nothing terrible in theso 



THE ship's cat. 297 

now bieukinjj;" over our barricrn every few jiiinuieH, yeL 
they ellectually iipHct the stomach, and licncc all com- 
fort. We lie upon the slant deck in tlic sunshine, 
sheltered near the helm, and see the spray fly over us, 
and watch the idle nourishing of the topmast. 

la* 



CHAPTEE LVI. 

ST. PAUL'S ISLAND.— CAPE NORTH.— COAST OF CAPE BEETON.— SYD- 
NET LIGHT AND HAEBOE.— THE END OF OUE VOYAGE TO LAB- 
EADOE, AND ABOUND NEWFOUNDLAND. 

Thursday, July 21. After a boisterous niglit we 
are on deck again, and find a pleasant cliange in the 
wind. It is gray and rainy, but tlien our sails swell, 
and we rush southward. 

A dome of inhospitable rock peers through the mist, 
one of nature's penitentiaries, which no living man would 
own, and so has been deeded to St. Paul : Melita is 
Eden to it. The saints, it appears to me, have been 
gifted with the ruggedest odds and ends. Wherever, on 
all these cast-iron shores, there is a flinty promontory, 
upon which Prometheus himself would have shuddered 
to be chained, there the name of an apostle has been 
transfixed. Yonder is Cape North, the stony arrow- 
head of Cape Breton, a headland, rather a multitudinous 



COAST OF CAPE BRETON. 2^9 

group of mountain headlands, draped with gloomy gran- 
deur, against the black cliffs of which the surf is now 
firing its snowy rockets. How is it they have not called 
it Cape St. Mary or St. John ? All in all, this is a fine 
termination of the picturesc[ue isle. Steep and lofty, its 
summits are darkened by steepled evergreens, and its 
many sides gashed with horrid fissures and ravines. 

Here we part from the broad gulf, and enter the 
broader ocean, passing between the promontories of Cape 
Breton and the last capes of Newfoundland, Cape An- 
guille, and Cape Kay with its rocky domes and tables. 
Thus have we fairly encompassed this Ireland of Amer- 
ica, in all but climate. White seabirds, with long wings 
tipped with black, sweep the air. We speed onward and 
homeward past the many-folded mountains. The eye 
slides along their graceful outlines, and follows their 
winding shores. Through the deep valleys we look 
upon the landscapes interior, softened by a purple at- 
mosphere. Clouds are breaking around the woody sum- 
mits, seas of forest-tops are smiling in the sunshine, and 
shadows are filling the rocky gorges with a kind of 
twilight. At last the sun is sinking behind the distant 
heights, and leaving his red footsteps on the clouds. 

C is painting his last picture, and these are the last 

pencillings of the voyage, We hail the cliffs of Sydney — 



300 ' END OF OUR VOYAGE TO LABKADOK. 

those remarkable cliffs that sat upon the horizon like 
tinted sea-shells, on the Sunday afternoon we were on 
our way to St. Johns. And yonder is the Sydney light 
twinkling through the dusk of evening. Our summer 
sail to Labrador and around Newfoundland is over. 
Where the anchor brings the vessel to a pause, there 
shall we leave the brave little pinkstern. May her 
wanderings in the future under the Union Jack be as 
happy as those of the xDresent have been under the Stars 
and Stripes. Thankful for the Divine care, we will ask 
protection for the night, and guidance home, the final 
haven where we would be. 



CHAPTER LVII. 

FAEEWELL TO CAPTAIN KNIGHT.— ON OUE WAT ACKOSS CAPE 
BEETON.— A MEEKT EIDE, AND THE EUSTIC LOVEE. 

Friday, July 22. Sydney harbor. A bright morn- 
ing, and the wind from the quarter where we should be 
happy to find it, were we going to sea. But, selfish 
souls ! because it puts us to a small inconvenience, we 
now wish that it did not blow, and that we may have 
calm weather. We are to breakfast, to finish packing, 
and take our leave of Captain Knight, from whom we 
part with emotions of regret. He will depart in the 
next steamer for St. Johns, and we start for Halifax by 
an inland route. 

Here we are, on our way across the Island of Cape 
Breton, bound for Nova Scotia. Our baggage — trunks, 
carpet-bags, reindeer-horns, snow-shoes, plants, and 
mosses — in a one-horse wagon, goes ahead ; we follow 



302 OUR WAY ACROSS CAPE BRETON. 

in another. We are delighted with the change from 
rolling" waves to rolling wheels. "We are delighted with 
our spirited nag. We are delighted with the scenery, 
which, however, is in no way remarkable. I believe that 
we should be delighted if we were riding through a 
smoky tunnel. The truth is the delight is in us, and 
will flow out, and would, be the world about us what it 
might. Every thing amuses us, even the provoking trick 
our pony has of slightly kicking up, every time the 
breeching cuts into his hams upon going down hill. As 
may be supposed, said pony is a creature of importance 
to us, now that he is our motive power. We do not look 
at the clouds now, and watch the temper of the atmos- 
phere ; our eyes are upon the body and legs of the httle 
fellow wrapped in this brown slrin. After the first effer- 
vescence of spirit upon starting, with which, of course, 
we were much delighted, lie began to lag a trifle, and to 
raise suspicions that he was not the horse good-natured 
Mr, D earing, his master, said he was. We are pleased 
to find ourselves mistaken. Our very blunders are sat- 
isfactory. The longer he goes the smarter he grows, giv- 
ing us symptoms of a disposition to run away, when or- 
dinarily we might look for any thing else. Let him run. 
We can ride as fast, and come in not a length behind, at 
the end of our thirty-two miles, the distance to a tavern. 



A MERRY RIDE, AND THE RUSTIC LOVER. 303 

The ride along the shore of Sydney harbor, over a 
smooth, hard road, was really charming, and would have 
been to travellers of ill temper. Wild roses incensed the 
fresh air, and the sunshine was bright upon the clover- 
fields. On the steamer down from Halifax to Sydney, 
I became acquainted with a tradesman, an intelligent 
Scotch Presbyterian. Who should come running out of 
a little country store by the road-side, with a shout that 
brought our nag down upon his haunches, but our friend ! 
He, too, was delighted, and shook us heartily by the hand, 
asking after " the Labrador," the icebergs, and our voyage 
in general. Set in the midst of our pleasure was one 
regret : our want of time to visit Louisburg, or the ruins 
of it. We talked it over, and then dismissed both the 
ruins and the regret. 

From the bay of Sydney the way is wonderfully 
serpentine for a main road, winding about apparently for 
the mere love of winding, and when there seems no 
more real necessity for it than for a brook in a level 
meadow. We have liked it all the better, though, run- 
ning, as it does, around the slightest hills, wooded with 
the perpetual spruce, intermingled with the birch and 
maple, crossing with a graceful twist little farms, and 
coming around garden fences, by the farmers' doors, under 
the willows and the apple trees. The native Indians, 



304 A MEKRY 1U1>K, A]S;i> THE KHSTIC LOVEli. 

tviokod mil, with cheap, i^liowy finery, whoso hiitsaro scon 
lazily smoking among the bushes, wero occasionally met, 
aiul ehatloil wilh. A young Me. something, upon whose 
sleepy faee was the moonshine ot' a. smih^^ was found 
trotting liis chestnut filly close hehind our wagon. The 
persistenee in (he thing was becoming disagreeable, and 
wo looked round several limes with an exjwession which 
said phiinly : '' Please keep a little back." Mc. was in no 
humor to take the hint. When our pace quickened, the 
click of his horse's shoes, and the breath of his steed, which 
carried a high head, wei-e close upon us ; a sudden slack- 
ening of our speed brought him, horse-head and all, as 
suddenly into our midst. Presently he changed his 
tactics, and dashed by, brushing the wlieels with his 
stirrn{\ and so trotting on ahead, taking occasion to twist 
himseh" on the saddL\ when a, walk permitted, and look 
back. The fellow was a character, although of the softer 
kind, and we struck up an acquaintance, during which, 
in the elfort to sustain his part of the conversation, ho 
rode aromid iis in all possible waAS. A particularly 
lavorito position was in the gutter at our side, wheiv, in 
spite of our united care, lie would now and then bo 
literally run np a stump, or a bank. Whether on the 
lead, or tollowing, we kept liim frequently at break-neck 
speed, during which the conversation was mostly con- 



A MEIUIY UIDK, AND TIIK liUSTlU LOVEK. 305 

linod (o moiiosyllublos — loiul ami low — and, wliou loi- 
Wixrd, dischiirgod now ovor ono, and (hen over (ho 
other shoulder. Mo. was a Cannor, and livoil with " (ho 
old folks at lionio." Ho had boon on a courting ex- 
pcditiou, in whioli ho considered himself successful. In 
fact, ho nuido n clean breast of it, and told us tho 
pleasant story of his love, and tho fine qualities of tho 
lass of -whom lie was enamored. Although she might 
not be thought handsome by a great many, yet she 
Avas handsome to him. Never errant knight rehearsed 
a softer tale in shorter periods, Avid) a louder voice, 
or ha}ipier heart. Ho was full oi^ il, and it mattered 
little to whom, or how he uttered it. For what dis- 
tance he was intending to bear us company, I have no 
notion. The house of an acquaintance, at the gate of 
which were several persons, who seemed at once to under- 
stand him, and whoso faces were so many open doors of 
curiosity, finally relieved us of him. It was evidently 
undesigned, and he pulled up, I thought, somewhat 
reluctantly. 



CHAPTEE LVIII. 

EVENING KIDE TO MES. KELLY'S TAVERN— THE SUPPEE, AND THE 

LODGING. 

At a sort of half-way liouse, tlie driver of tlie bag- 
gage-wagon stopped to feed and water, and I walked on 
alone, leaving the painter with his sketch-hook. For a 
mile or more, the road wound its way through thick 
woods, mostly spruce, and " I whistled as I went," cer- 
tainly not "for want of thought," and sang for the 
solitude, and was answered by the ringing echoes and the 
wood-thrush, whose sweet melody, sounding with a sil- 
very, metallic ring, often made me pause and listen. 
Eed raspberries, pendent from the slender bushes, 
tempted me frequently to spring up the broken, earthy 
bank, where, to my surprise I met the first strawberries 
coming on from the juicier climes. Euby darlings, they 
had got only thus far along, and looked timid and dis- 
heartened, dropping wearily into the mossy turf, where 



EVENING KIDE TO MRS. KELLY'S TAVERN, 307 

they trembled like drops of blood. And so I loitered 
along the lonely highway, up which the sweetest of all 
the fruits were coming, and over which the wild birds 
were pouring forth their songs, and felt that I was only 
very, very happily going on toward heaven, taking home 
and loving, and beloved ones by the way. In the middle 
of the forest, I met a tall, thin Indian in ragged, Eng- 
lish dress. He passed me by silently, and with an air 
of bashfulness. I was a little disappointed. When 
I saw him approaching, I proposed to myself a rest upon 
a log near by, and a talk with the man about his people. 
The wagons came up presently, and I resumed the reins, 
having, at the outset, been voted by a small majority 
much the better whip. 

Late in the afternoon, we came upon the shores of 
Bras D'or, a fiord or inlet extending in from the ocean, 
and winding for many miles among hills, farms and 
woodlands in a manner exceedingly picturesque. The 
ride was lovely, too lovely for the merriment in which we 
had been freely indulging. Ebullitions of mirth gave 
way to thoughts and emotions arising from the beauty 
of the scenery and the hour. Clouds of dazzling flame, 
and a rosy sunset were reflected in the purple waters. 
As we came on at a rapid pace through the twilight and 
the succeeding darkness, rounding the hills abutting on 



308 EVENING EIDE TO MKS. KELLY'S TAVERN. 

the water, and thridding bits of wood, we settled into a 
stillness as unbroken as if we had been riding alone. It 
was nearly ten o'clock when we arrived at oiir inn, 
none the worse for our drive of thirty-two miles, good 
measure. 

Our inn ! Imagine, if you will, a long, low-roofed, 
dingy white house, with a front piazza, and hard by a 
sign swinging from the limb of a broad shade tree, 
creaking harsh plaints to the lazy breeze, and, in dark 
letters, asserting from year to year that this is the 
traveller's home. If it be your pleasure to indulge in 
such imaginings, let me at once assure you that in our 
Cape Breton Inn there is no corresponding reality. In- 
stantly extinguish from your mind said white house, 
tree and sign, and put in the place of them a log cabin 
of the old school, in the naked arms of the weather, 
backed by a stumpy field and weedy potato-patch, and 
fronted by a couple of rickety log sheds. That antique 
mensuration accomplished by the swinging of a cat would 
very nearly decide the whole extent of the interior, one 
side of which is a fire-place and fire, around which re- 
volve, as primary orb, the hostess, Mrs. Kelly, and as 
satellites, a son and daughter and maid-servant. With 
all these powers, and with ample time, you may guess 
that we sat down at last to a savory and generous sup- 



THE SUPPER AND LODGING. 309 

per. There was tea, somewhat intimate, to be sure, with 
the waterpot, and there was bread, nice as the Queen her- 
self ever gets at Balmoral. The butter, alas ! was afflicted 
with that ailment which seems to be chronic throughout 
these her majesty's dominions, rancidity and salt. But 
the milk was creamy, and the eggs fresh as newly-cut 
marble, and the berry-pie, served at the hands of the 
daughter, a neat and modest girl with pretty face and 
figure, was a becoming finish to the meal. 

Mrs. Kelly is a Highland widow, of whom a story 
may be told, not indeed of the tragic character of Sir 
"Walter's Highland Widow, but sufficiently mournful. 
She walked back and forth before the door, and seemed 
to take a melancholy pleasure in relating it. Two fine 
boys had been tempted to leave her, of whom she had 
not heard a syllable for years, but for whom, even then, 
she was looking with the hope and yearning love of 
Margaret in Wordsworth's " Excursion." Her husband, 
kind man, was in the grave. Her two children and her 
little farm were much to be thankful for. But then it 
was not Scotland. A sad day for her when they were 
persuaded to leave "home." The land here was not 
productive, and the winters were so long and snowy. 
There was, however, a bright side to her fortunes, and I 
tried to make her see it. At the conclusion of the talk. 



310 THE SUPPER AND LODGING. 

she asked me in to read a chapter, and offer the evening 
prayer. 

It was getting late, and I asked to retire. I found 
that we had retired. We were sitting in our private 
chamher. and the closely-curtained bed behind us, a 
match for one in an opposite corner, too long and too 
wide for a lad in his teens, was the appointed couch for 
two of us, and all ready. There were nine or ten of us, 
all told, and among them the daughter's lover, a good- 
looking and very well-appearing young man. Now that 
we were provided for, it was certainly no concern of ours 
how and where the others were to lodge, although I could 
not avoid feeling some interest in the matter. To hasten 
things to a conclusion, I rose, wound my watch, took off 
my boots, my coat and vest, demonstrations of my inten- 
tion of going at once to bed that were not mistaken. Im- 
mediately all walked out of the house, and remained out, 
talking in the open air, until we were snugly packed away 
and pinned in behind the scant curtains, when they re- 
turned, and noiselessly went to rest in some order peculiar 
to the household, dividing between them the other bed, 
the floor, and the small chamber under the roof When, 
in her native land, an ebony lady entertained Mungo Park, 
she and her maids lightened their nocturnal labors — spin- 
ning cotton — by singing plaintive songs, the burden of 



THE SUPPER AND LODGING. 311 

which, was " the poor white man who came and sat under 
our tree," Thus our two ipaidens lightened both their 
labors and our slumbers, but by a less poetic process. 
While they busied themselves with sweeping the house, 
and washing dishes until after midnight, they kept a con- 
tinual whispering, the subject of which was, in part, the 
poor sunburnt men who came to sleep under their curtains 
— but could not do it. Considering that the daughter had 
a sweetheart in the house, the sibilant disturbances of the 
girls were meekly suffered until they naturally whispered 
and swept their way to bed. After this we had a fair 
field, and did our best to improve it. The room being 
warm and smoky, I unpinned the curtain, and started for 
fresh air, stealing out as quietly as possible. Treach- 
erous door ! When I had succeeded in hitting upon the 
wooden latch, up it came with a jerk and a clack that 
went, it seemed to me, to the ears of every sleeper. I 
waited till I thought the effect of the noise had passed 
away, when I began slowly opening the door. It 
squealed like a bagpipe, startling the dreamers from 
their pillows, and arousing suspicions of a rogue creeping 
in, while it was only the restless traveller creeping out. 
There had been a kitten mewing at the door for some 
time. With tail erect, she whipped in between my feet. 
There was a puppy outside also, and some pigs ; each in 



312 THE SUPPER AND LODGING. 

its way promising to keep up till daylight the serenade of 
barking and grunting, witli whichj from an earlier hour, 
they had entertained us. It was starlight, and I could see 
my ground, as I thought. I determined to have satisfaction 
"by setting the dog upon the pigs, and then flogging the dog. 
Eapping one over the head with a bean-pole, by way of 
prelude to rapping the other, the puppy instantly joined 
in the assault, which, but for an unlucky stubbing of my 
naked toes, would have proved successful. 'I flung down 
my bean-pole with disgust, and beat, instead of the 
young rascal of a dog, an inglorious retreat. For the rest 
of the night, it was a triumph with the enemy, reinforced 
by some goslings and quacking ducks. If there was 
needed any more rosin on the bow that kept sawing 
across my tightly tuned nerves, two or three fleas sup- 
plied it at short intervals. The bite of the little villains 
made me jump like sparks of fire. There was, also, 
toward the chilly morning hours, a tide in our affairs, a 
regular ebb and flow of bed-clothes, and a final cataract 
of them, the entire sheet descending into some abyss, 
from which we never succeeded in recovering hardly any 
thing more than some scanty edges and corners of a 
blanket. It was a wonder to me how my companion in 
arms could sleep as he did, a pleasure he declares he did 
not enjoy ; but in his restlessness was surprised that I 



THE SUPPER AND LODGING. 313 

could slumber on so soundly, and snore througli so many 
troubles — a dulness from which, of course, 1 tried stoutly 
to clear myself. Thus, as frequently happens, each imag- 
ined the other to have slept, and himself to have been 
wakeful all night. Undoubtedly, both waked and slum- 
bered, and magnified the several small annoyances. 

When we were ready to get up, which was disa- 
greeably early, the household was stirring. But a peep 
through the crevice of the curtains, which had been care- 
fully pinned together again by some fingers unknown, 
while we were dreaming, gave the needful hint, when out 
they went again among the ducks and goslings. We 
sprang out of bed, and dressed with all reasonable dis- 
patch — an exercise in which we were slightly interrupted 
by a younger puppy, the pestilent animal persisting, in 
spite of a kick or two, in springing at and nibbling our 
feet. 

14 



CHAPTEK LIX. 

SUNDAY AT DAVID MUKDOCH'S.— THE SCENEET OF BRAS D'OE. 

Saturday, July 23. We were off betimes, and 
trundling riglit merrily again along the hilly shores of 
Bras D'or, a much more expanded sheet of water than 
yesterday. At three o'clock, p. m., we arrived at David 
Murdoch's, the end of our journey with Dearing's convey- 
ances, and where we remain until Monday morning. 

I have just returned from a walk through wood and 
meadow, picking berries by the way, and now wait for 
dinner, which, from the linen on the table, the look of the 
landlady, and the general air of things, promises uncom- 
monly well. From this frequent mention of the quality of 
our dinner, it may be thought that I think them of great 
importance. I do think them of very great importance ; 
not so much because good meals are necessary and the 
best on mere sanatory grounds, but because they are an 



THE SCENERY OF BRAS d'OR. 315 

allowable luxury, especially at a time when one is apt to 
have a sharp appetite and good digestion. A man is 
something of an animal, and likes excellent eating for 
the comfort of it, and the stomach's sake, and that lihe 
is defensible on good moral grounds. I need not add, 
that the indulgence of it should have upon it the bit and 
curb of moderation ; in the application of which moral 
force consists temperance, a virtue that stands not in 
the scantiness, the meanness, or the entire absence of 
things drank and eaten, but in the strong, controUifig 
will. After this brief apology for the hungry traveller's 
love of bountiful dinners well and neatly served, I will 
return to the sylvan nook where ours, for to-day and to- 
morrow, are to be cooked and eaten. 

We are at the foot of a high, broad hill, verdant with 
meadows and pastures, and checkered with woods and 
orchards, around the lake-end of which the road comes 
gracefully winding down to the creek and the bridge 
close by. The expanse of water lying off to the west, as 
you might have guessed, is named St. Peter's Bay, and 
the buildings, a mile or more distant along the spruce 
and pine-covered shore, is St. Peter's itself, a village. 
The accommodations of Mr. Murdoch are ampler than 
those of the Widow Kelly ; and the brown, wooden house 
stands backed into the thick evergreen forest, the front 



316 SUNDAY AT DAVID MUKDOCH'S. 

door dressing to the right and left, with its square- 
toed stone step in Hne with the trees along the street. 
We have each a neat room, softened under foot with 
a rag carpet, and dimmed by a "small window and 
its clean white curtain. The narrow feather-heds are 
freshened with the cleanest linen. We have seen the 
last of our driver, who returns to-day as far as the 
Widow Kelly's. 

With one horse attached to the hinder end of the 
forward wagon, he went over the bridge and up the hill, 
" an hour and a half ago." 

Sunday, July 24. We rest according to the com- 
mandment, and have religious service in the family, the 
members of which, like most of the Scotch of Cape 
Breton, are Presbyterians. In the afternoon, we saun- 
tered through the adjoining woods and fields, picking a 
few strawberries, and giving to ourselves a practical illus- 
tration of the ease with which people slip into the habit 
of Sabbath-breaking, who live in out-of-the-way places, 
distant from the parish church, and beyond the restraints 
of a well-ordered community. In the course of our walk, 
we came out upon the beach, and looked at the beautiful 
evening sky across the water. Bountiful Providence ! 
Where hast thou not sown the seeds of loveliness, and 



SUNDAY AT DAVID MUKDOCH'8. 317 

made tlie flowers of glory bloom ? Celestial colors arc 
also beneath the foot. The swells that fretted, and 
left their froth along the sloping sand, were freighted 
with the jelly-fish, several of which were of the most 
exquisite purple. 



CHAPTEK LX. 

OFF FOE THE STKAIT OF CAJTSO.— ST. PETEE'S AND THE COHNTET.— 
DAVID MUEDOCH'S HOESES, AND UIS DEIVING.— AEEIVE AT 
PLASTEE COVE. 

Monday, July 25. We are out " by tlie dawn's early 
light/' and assist in getting our baggage upon the coach, 
as David Murdoch calls his two-horse covered wagon, 
which is to carry us on to the Strait of Canso. We have 
breakfasted, and all is ready. As I pen these notes, here 
and there by the wayside, I keep them mainly in the 
present tense. David, a little fair-complexioned, sandy- 
whiskered farmer, innkeeper, stage-proprietor, and driver, 
all in one, is exactly the man for his vocation. Quick in 
his motions, intelligent and good-tempered, he is entirely 
to our purpose. He starts his Cape Bretons, a span of 
light, wiry animals, upon a canter, in our opinion an in- 
discreet pace. We pass St. Peter's, a superlative place — 
superlatively minute, the smallest city in the world. It 



ST. Peter's. 319 

had, for several years, one house, but has of late been in 
a more thriving condition. It has now a name on the 
map, a population of some nine or ten souls, and two 
houses, a large public work in the shape of a beach, and 
a little shipping, not able to say how much exactly, as it 
is all absent but a skiff and a bark canoe, and the wreck 
of a schooner, in a poor and neglected condition. How 
long, at this rate of progress, it will take for St. Peter's to 
grow out of existence, is a fair question of arithmetic, 
left for the statist of the island to cipher out. Wo 
pause for a moment only, and that in front of a mer- 
cantile establishment, if ono may guess from a tin-foil- 
covered paper of tobacco, and astride of it a couple of 
pipes in the window, but dash through its suburbs, a 
pig-pen and a hen-roost, and pass the gates of a calf-pen 
and a potato-patch, and gain the open country, a wild 
and lonesome tract, half-wooded, and the other half 
weeds, brush, and stumps of all calibre and colors, 
from rotten-red and brown down to coal-black, and all 
torn to pieces, and tangled into one briery "wilderness, 
just fit for the fires that occasionally scour through. 

We were mistaken about the indiscretion of David, in 
his driving, and add two mere to the list of those imperti- 
nent travellers who hastily pass judgment upon persons 
and things of which they are quite ignorant. David is 



320 DAVID Murdoch's horses, and driving. 

the Jehu of the road, and his steeds are chosen, and fitted 
to their master. Like locomotives, they work with the 
greater ease and spirit as they wax hotter. For three 
hours they trotted, galloped, ran, as if something more 
than horse was in them, and something worse than man 
was in their driver. There was ; as we knew by the flame 
in his face and about his nostrils, and by his breath that 
had spirit in it. Around the hills, and at their foot, 
over bridges, and through the bushy dales, the road 
described many a Hogarth's line of beauty, and many a 
full-blooded S. In whirling through these graceful sinu- 
osities, now strongly on the right wheels, then heavily on 
the left, flirting the dust or mud into the air, we seemed 
to swim or fly on the oily brim of peril. Expostulation 
flashed out upon the lips in vain. A shake of the head, 
and a knowing smile, sharpened off by the crack of the 
whip, restored assurance, and fairly straightened all things 
out. But all went well, and passengers as well as driver 
became rash and brave, and foolishly came to like and 
applaud what at first they were disposed to protest 
against. 

A change of horses has enabled David to persist in 
this extraordinary driving, which brings us to Plaster 
Cove at nooUj where we part with both the mercurial 
little Scotchman, and Cape Breton. Thus have we 



ARRIVE AT PLASTER COVE. 321 

coasted, and crossed this British Island, in which, with 
all that is repulsive and desolate, nature has done much, 
especially in the picturesque, and where agriculture and 
commerce have large jS.elds for improvement. To the 
tourist that loves nature, and who, for the manifold 
beauties by hill and shore, by woods and waters, is happy 
to make small sacrifices of personal comfort, I would 
commend Cape Breton. Your fashionable, whose main 
object is company, dress, and frivolous pleasure with the 
gay, and whose only tolerable stopping-place is the grand 
hotel, had better content himself with reading of this 
Island. 

14* 



CHAPTEK LXI. 

ADIEU TO DAVID AND CAPE BKETON.— THE STEAIT OF CANSO.— OUE 
NOVA SCOTIA COACH.— ST. GEORGE'S BAT, AND THE EIDE INTO 
ANTIGONISH. 

Plaster Cove^ a small village, and our dining-place, is 
at tlie main point of departure for Nova Scotia on the 
Strait of Canso, a river to all appearance, and not unlike 
the Niagara, pouring its deep, green tides back and forth 
through its rockj channel, overlooked by cliffs and high- 
lands. Directly opposite, the hills rise into quite a 
mountain, thickly wooded, down the sides of which is a 
broad clearing for the telegraphic wire connecting with 
the Atlantic cable. At first a very high tower of timber 
was erected on this, the Cape Breton side, in order to 
carry the wire above the highest mast, but it was soon 
abandoned and left to fall into ruin. The wire is now 
submerged, and enters the water in the form of a sub- 
stantial iron rope strong enough for the anchor of a man- 
of-war. 



THE STRAIT OF CANSO. 323 

Two o'clock, P. M., we crossed the strait in a small sail- 
boat, and encountered quite a disagreeable sea, enough so 
to give us a few dashes of salt water, and frighten tlie 
women that were in company. We have a two-horse 
post-coach, of queer shape and uncomfortable dimensions, 
being short and narrow in the body, but tall enough to 
serve for a canopy at the head of a procession. One could 
easily spread his umbrella overhead, and find some incon- 
venience in disposing of it closed down below. To Anti- 
gonish, the town for which we start in this — I am at a loss 
to determine whether antique, or an anticipation of the 
future — carriage, it is thirty-sis miles, and not greatly 
different from as many miles lately passed over, if I may 
guess from what I can see for a mile ahead. Our fellow- 
sufferers in this strait jacket of a carriage are Scotchmen, 
and think in Gaelic before they speak, I imagine, as have 
many of them that we have met. They are much 
amused at the humour of the painter, of whose vocation 
and standing in the world they have not the remotest 
notion. 

" St. George, he was for England, 
St. Denis was for France ; 
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense," 

is the refrain of Master John Grubb, of Christ Church, 
Oxford, his ballad, rehearsed at the anniversary feast of 



324 ST. GEOKGE'S bay, and ride to ANTIGONISH. 

St. George's club, on St, George's Day, the 23d of April. 
And now for the reason that I have been humroino- this 
classic nonsense, or rather that I should have thought of it : 
To the north of us is a blue expanse, dotted and bordered 
by inlands^ headlands, and the warm blue heights of Cape 
Breton, It is a land of azure reticule, or pocket of the 
Gulf, and was early christened, by whom I cannot tell, 
St. George's Bay. This is the second Bay in honor of the 
martyr of Nicomedia, the patron Saint of England, to 
repeat a popish fancy, that we have encountered within 
a few days. And truly, could the old religious hero revisit 
these earthly scenes, he would own that they had given 
his name to a very fine extent of water, whose purple 
hills to the northeast stand at the opening of the Strait 
of Canso, Due north, a vessel would touch, in a few 
hours' sail, the eastern cape of Prince Edward's Island, 
the garden of all the Gulf, another region for the summer 
traveller. 

These landscapes of island, sky, and water are softly 
beautiful in the afternoon and sunset lights, but scarcely 
picturesque, and never grand. The country is dull and 
wearisome, gently diversified with hill and dale, wood- 
lands and farms, in no very high state of culture, and 
thinly populated. There is some advantage, however, 
resulting from this dulness of scenery : it drives us to 



ST. GEORGF/S bay, and ride to ANTIGONISH. 325 

ourselves for entertainment. A merrier time I do not 
remember than that lately passed on the driver's seat. 
The theme was scarecrows — a peculiar walk of art, in 
which the painter, during a recent stay in a remote part 
of the country, became sufficiently adept to frighten, not 
only the little creatures that pulled up the corn, but 
even the larger ones that planted it. To such perfection 
did he finally carry old clothes and straw, that, like the 
statue of Pygmalion, his images became indued with life, 
and ended with running after the astonished rustics of 
the neighborhood. We ride into Antigonish, a thriving 
village, with pretty white houses and spreading shade- 
trees, at dusk, and alight at a comfortable tavern, where 
we sup on salmon, and rest until after midnight. 



CHAPTEE LXII. 

NEW GLASGOW.— THE EIDE TO TRUEO.— THE EAILWAY EIDE TO 
HALIFAX.— PAETING WITH THE PAINTEE. 

Tuesday, July 26. New Glasgow. We halt here 
for breakfast, after a sociable and merry ride of several 
hours from Antigonish, where, after a refreshing sleep, we 
were favored by a change of coaches, and the pleasant 
company of an officer of the English army. Here is a 
broad and fertile vale with a pretty river and town ; all 
reminding us of New England, Across the river are 
coal-mines, a railroad, and ther oar of cars, merely coal- 
cars, however. Tide-water is close by, setting in from 
the Strait of Northumberland, the lengthy water lying 
between the mainland and Prince Edward's Island. We 
are all ready for our ride to Truro, on Mines Bay, or a 
spur of it, an eastern reach of the Bay of Fundy, and 
distant forty miles, where we take the cars for Halifax, 



THE RAILWAY RIDE TO HALIFAX. 327 

or all the world. Those wonderful cars ! Why, at 
Truro, I shall hegin to feel at home, a point more remote 
than Europe, in the day of only sails and horse-power. 

The ride is cheering, as we take it on the coach-toj) 
in the breezy, bright day. Broad farms, with barns and 
dwellings, grass and grain and orchards, cattle and bleat- 
ing sheep spread out upon the hills, and stretch along the 
valleys. The plain of Truro has many of the features of 
a populous and well-cultivated county. Its groves and 
trees and wide meadows, waiting for the mower, form a 
pretty and extended landscape. The town itself, reached 
at three o'clocli:, with its central square and grass and 
shades, is too much like a village of New England to need 
further mention. While at dinner, the v/histlc of the 
locomotive indicated the direction of the station, a wel- 
come call, which we obeyed with rather more than ordi- 
nary alacrity. The ride to Halifax, which occupied from 
four o'clock until dusk, was by no means at Yankee 
speed, and took us through a thinly inhabited country, 
somewhat broken, and interspersed with woods and 
waters — a region that makes no very definite or lasting 
impression, and yet one that the traveller looks out upon 
with some pleasure. The last few miles along the banks 
of the river flowing into Halifax Bay was a lovely valley 
ride. Rounded hills and bluffs green and bowery, and 



328 PARTING WITH THE PAINTER. 

handsome residences looking out between pretty groves 
and down grassy lawns, never appeared more attractive. 
Had we been going the other way, perhaps they would 
not have seemed deserving of more than a passing look. 
In the weary hours, and along the torrid portions of the 
path of life, I am sure that I shall remember the quiet, 
refreshing scenery of that river, and wish myself among 
its graceful and placid beauties. From the noisy station 
we trundled in an omnibus through the narrow streets of 
an old-fashioned, hill-side city, crowned with a fortress 
looking off south upon a bay and the distant ocean, and 
alighted at a hotel of stories and many windows, where 
we heard a gong, instrument of Pandemonium, and took 
tea with the relish of medicine, and talked over the con- 
clusion of our journey. As haste was more requisite on 
my part, I resolved to post across the province to Wind- 
sor, that night, and leave the painter to wend his way 
homeward at his leisure. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

COACH EIDE AT NIGHT FROM HALIFAX TO WINDSOE.— THE PEINCE 
EDWAED'S MAN, AND THE GENTLEMAN FEOM NEWFOUNDLAND. 

Immersed in fog, and shut np in a small coach, 
three of us^ a Prince Edward's man and a gentleman 
from Newfoundland, rode at a round trot, with but two 
or three brief intermissions, from ten o'clock in the even- 
ing until six next morning. The country, I conclude — if 
a man may have any conclusiong, who rides with his eyes 
fast shut, and sleeps and nods — is a succession of hills 
and dales. From the bridges, over which we rumbled, 
and from the crowing of the cocks at midnight and at 
dawn, I argue that there v/ere farms and streams. My 
companions were agreeable. Being partners in the en- 
terprise, at the cost of twenty-two dollars and a half for 
an eight hours' drive, we had feUow-feelings on all things 
in general, and upon the expensiveness of night travel- 



330 THE PKIKCE EDWAHD'S MAN. 

ling in Nova Scotia in particular. The Prince Edward's 
man, a tradesman, was on his first visit to the States, 
in fact to the great world, and was a modest, thoughtful 
person, who talked as men of merely home experience 
are apt to talk, sajnng nothing to object to, nothing to 
startle, and some little to remember concerning the 
climate, the society, and products of his native isle. The 
gentleman from Newfoundland had seen the world to 
his soul's content, and now was a most passionate lover 
of wild nature. He had dined with nobility and gentry, 
and could talk of them and of cities, from the end of his 
tongue ; but of the pleasures of the sportsman in British 
America, out of his very heart. A more genial com- 
panion the lonely traveller could not easily light upon. 
I had seen him before, but forgot to mention it. It was 
at Murdoch's, on the last Sunday, which I was sorry to 
recollect of him. He drove up about noon, in wood- 
man's dress partly ; washed, dined, and departed in great 
haste for Pictou, in order to reach Halifax in time for 
the very steamer that we were hoping to catch. With 
all his speed he missed it as well as we. Hinc illae 
lachrymee. In his conversation you heard the crack of 
the rifle, and the roar of the forest and the ocean. He 
was often reeling in the largest salmon and the finest 
trout, and bringing down with a crash in the brushwood 



THE GENTLEMAN EllOM NEWFOUNDLAND, 331 

the fattest of all bucks. The light of his nut-brown 
pipe, a costly article, flashing faintly on his well-marked 
face, reminded me of the red blaze of camp-fires in the 
woods, on the banks of mountain brooks, and the shores 
of solitary lakes. From one of a nature so companion- 
able you part, on the road, after no longer than a day's 
acquaintance, with genuine regret. He was a character 
for the novelist, with a head and countenance both for 
painter and sculjDtor. 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

WINDSOK.— THE AVON AND THE TIDE.— THE STEAMER FOK ST. JOHN'S, 
NEW BEUNSWICK.— MINES BASIN.— COAST SCENEET.— THE SCENE 
OF EVANGELINE.— PAESBOEO.— THE BAT OP FUND T.— NOVA SCOTIA 
AND NEW BEUNSWICK SHOEES.— ST. JOHNS.— THE MAINE COAST, 
AND GEAND MANAN. 

Wednesday, July 27. Windsor, N. S. Soon after 
our arrival, I walked down to the Avon, an arm of Mines 
Bay, itself an expanded inlet of the great Bay of Fundy, 
to view tlie wonderful tide. It was not coming in, as I 
had hoped, but quite out, leaving miles of black river- 
bottom entirely bare, with only a small stream coursing 
through in a serpentine manner. A line of blue water 
was visible on the northern horizon. After an absence 
of an hour or so, I loitered back, when, to my surprise, 
there was a river like the Hudson at Catskill, running up 
with a powerful current. The high wharf, upon which, 
but a short time before, I had stood and surveyed the 
black, unsightly fields of mud, was now up to its middle 



MINES BASIN. 333 

in the turbid and whirling stream, and very nearly in, 
the steamer from St. Johns, N. B. 

In the course of an hour more I was on board, and 
waiting for the turn of the tide, upon which, of necessity, 
the boat takes her departure. I had missed, after all, 
seeing the first approach of the tidal wave, and had to 
content myself with what I have described, and with a 
short walk in the town, of late esteeming itself note- 
worthy on account of being the birthplace of General 
Williams, the hero of Kars, of whose fine personal ap- 
pearance I have spoken. 

We are now at the opening of the Avon into Mines 
Bay or Basin, as they call this small sea, and look upon 
scenes of which Longfellow speaks in the first pages of 
his Evangeline. It is simply a pleasant-looking farming 
country, checkered with fields of green, now of a yellow 
tint and then of a blue. Shores of reddish rocks and 
sand make a pretty foreground line along the west, and 
rise to the picturesque as they wind away northward. 
Headlands of gray and red rocks in slopes and precipices 
stand out in bold relief crowned with underwood and 
loftier trees. The clouds are clearing away before the 
breeze, and letting us have a sparkling sea, a fine blue 
sky, and landscapes dappled with light and shadow. 

Parsboro, a village on the north shore of the Basin, 



334 \ COAST SCENERY. 

enjoys more tlian its share of broad, gravelly beacli, over- 
hung with, clifted and woody bluffs. One fresh, from the 
dead walls of a great city would be delighted with the 
sylvan shores of Parsboro. The beach, with all its 
breadth, a miracle of pebbly beauty, slants steeply to the 
surf, which is now rolling up in curling clouds of green 
and white. Here we turn westward into the great bay 
itself, going with a tide that rushes like a mighty river 
toward a cataract, whirhng, boiling, breaking in half 
moons of crispy foam. Behind us is the blue reach of 
Chignecto Bay, the northern of the two long and winding 
horns of the main body of water, up which it would be 
play for a fortnight to hunt romantic scenery, and wit- 
ness the "bore," that most brilHant of all tidal disj)lays. 

Here is a broad sea, moving with strange velocity for 
a sea. The prospect to the south is singularly fine. 
Nova Scotia, sloping from the far-off sky gently down to 
the shores, its fields and villages and country dwellings 
gleaming in the warm noon-day, or darkening in the 
shadow of a transient cloud — a contrast to the northern, 
New Brunswick coast, iron-bound and covered with dark 
forests. Drops from a coming shower are wasting their 
sweet freshness upon the briny deep, an agreeable discord 
in the common music of the day, and chime in, among 
pleasant incidents, with the talk of the Prince Edward's 



THE MAINE COAST. 335 

man, and the sparkling conversation of the Newfoundland 
gentleman. "And so sail we" into the harbor of St. 
Johns, the last of the waters of this divine apostle, in 
time for supper and a pleasant ramble about the city. 
You might call it the city of hills. 

Thuksday, July 28, 1859. St. Johns, N. B. This 
is my last date, and I write it out in full, in the light of 
a fine morning, on the deck of the steamer for Portland. 
The coast of Maine, truly picturesque as it is, with its 
rocky points, lake-like bays, and islands bristling in their 
dark evergreens like porcupines, and particularly Mount 
Desert Island and Frenchman's Bay, is the mildest form" 
of Newfoundland scenery as you see it on the Atlantic 
side, with an additional dressing of forest and vegetation, 
sparsely studded with towns and habitations. 

Speaking of Mount Desert Island, recalls Cole to 
memory, who was, I believe, the first landscape painter 
of our country that visited that picturesque region. I 
remember with what enthusiasm he spoke of the coast 
scenery — the fine surf upon Sand Beach — the play of 
the surge in the caverns of Great Head — the j9Egean 
beauty of Frenchman's Bay — the forests, and the wild, 
rugged mountains, from the tops of which he could count 
a multitude of sails upon the blue ocean, and follow the 



336 GRAND MAN AN. 

rocky shores and sparkling breakers for many and many 
a mile. Familiar to me as all that has long since he- 
come, I shall not pass it to-day without emotion. 

Grand Manan, a favorite summer haunt of the 
painter, is the very throne of the bold and romantic. 
The high, precipitous shores, but for the woods which 
beautify them, are quite in the style of Labrador. I look 
upon its grand old cliffs with double interest from the 
fact that he has made me familiar with its people and 
scenery. As it recedes from my view, and becomes a dot 
in the boundless waters, I will put the period to this 
record. 



THE END. 



_Nov_UJfe61 J 



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